3 out of 5

Label: digital release, bandcamp

Producer: The Monolith

So Monolith’s first album – ‘Here Comes…’ combined some typical boy/girl pop tendencies with an undertone of bite and menace, opening with impressive energy and then ebbing and flowing over the course of the album to build to the impressive closer ‘Trilogy.’  So the disc felt like it had an overall idea.  ‘Meet You at the Monolith,’ on the other hand, feels like the start of something good before the band – after a few tracks – just forgets what it’s doing, and dials in some interesting riffs that form the base for some generic pop songs.

Opener ‘The Sounding’ sets us up well, Bill Rousseau’s totally hummable vocals swooning us through crunchy keys and a kicking drum and guitar sound, and the singing tradeoff with Ms. Dahlia Ramirez for the next couple tracks keeps us Monolith-motivated.  But something’s off.  And it tips it’s hat a bit in track 4 – ‘Middle of the Movie’ – where the lyrics expose themselves as sorta’ cutesy pop stuff.  ‘Here Comes…’ wasn’t the deepest of poetry or anything, but there was a trace of feeling behind things, whereas ‘Meet You’ just seems to dig through the rhyme and relationship playbook.  And with that generic feel, the production quality sounds like it takes a dip, or the band dynamic changes, the drums sounding like a session player, the guitar and bass playing riffs written by The Monolith.  They’re still totally head-nodding tracks, but they could go on any Merge pop release and feel at home.  This is just continues to be solidified as the album stretches on – ‘Dory’, past the mid-point, trying to kick it back up but it’s too late in the game, and after a pleasant instrumental intermission, the last few songs can’t come near the building grace of ‘Trilogy’, despite having some good hooks.

I’m overly critical only because Mono’s first album was sort of a random surprise, but it’s possible to question whether Jay Pelicci’s production on that assisted the group into shaping their pop sound more effectively.  ‘Meet You…’ – while totally a competent recording – starts off shining but then loses its personality as the tracks go by.