Album Review: Mono - Hymn To The Immortal Wind (Uncut)

5/5
Not the trip hop Mono. Not even close.

Three and a half minutes into Mono’s Steve Albini-produced fifth album the softly chiming guitars and tinkling timpani are interrupted by a barrage of noise so colossal it sounds like the end of the world. For the next hour the Japanese four piece map out an instrumental landscape imbued with the same sense of magical mysticism as a Murakami novel, massive walls of noise reinforced by heartrending orchestral arrangements and interspersed with more meditative passages worthy of a Morricone soundtrack. Frankly, it makes Explosions In The Sky sound like the pop of a packet of crisps.

Album Review: Mono - Hymn To The Immortal Wind (Uncut)

Album Review: It Hugs Back - Inside Your Guitar (Uncut)

4/5
Childhood friends roll back the years

It starts, continues and ends like Yo La Tengo, but It Hugs Back have chosen the rich seam of turn-of-the-century YLT albums that saw the Hoboken trio all dreamy-eyed and loving. So for once imitation is more than flattery, this understated blend of hushed vocals, jangling guitars and sweetly soporific organ tones delivered as though it’s the Kent quartet’s own. Despite lengthy droning passages that recall labelmates Stereolab, little more than the prodding keyboards in ‘Don’t Know’ and early Kevin Shields mannerisms throughout threaten to disturb the warm fuzzy restraint that make this eminently likeable.

Album Review: It Hugs Back - Inside Your Guitar (Uncut)