EXO

MONOMYTH is one of my favourite Dutch bands releasing four studio albums so far with "Exo" being the third from 2016. A five piece who play space rock of the highest quality. As I've mentioned before the drummer is from the legendary band 35007. I still feel that 2013 self titled debut is their best but would rate this one and the second one "Further" fairly evenly although this is less consistent in my opinion.

That begins with the 14 1/2 minute opener that I think could have been so much better. I like the thought process here of building slowly then starting over but each time they get more powerful. It's just a little tedious because I say "more powerful" but it's not even really powerful at all, just becomes more energetic, more depth but still very tame. Well after 10 1/2 minutes we get riffs and true power. I like the guitar before 12 minutes as it starts to solo. It's spacey again late.

"Surface Crawler" has some energy and they pay homage to that NEU!/ LA DUSSELDORF dance sound with those synths. Not big on that and it will come and go as they repeat hemes here. So the first half of the album is good but far from great but then we get the seven minute "Et Oasis" and the almost ten minute "LHC" where they more than make up for it.

"Et Oasis" has some beautiful spacey sounds that come and go while the rest is energetic and catchy. "LHC" opens with sequencers and cymbals and builds to drums and more as it plays out. So good! It continues building to a point, followed by a calm then starting over sequence. The closer "Moebius Trip" is more in line with the opening two tracks but for me this is a solid 4 star album that continues their high quality of releases.

I hope to spend time with what is their most recent album "Orbis Quadrantis" in the coming weeks.