MONARCH OF MONSTERS

Imagine me looking through music released in the last year through the RYM website, only to see that an album released 12 days ago titled "Monarch of Monsters" labled as "progressive rock" with about 400 or so decently high ratings. I see the aritst name "Vylet Pony" and think to myself: "Pony in the name? This will probably be some furry nonsense" and sure enough, after a look through their discography I see a decently long list of low rated EDM/brostep albums with MLP OCs on the covers.

Still, I have an open mind and an insatiable appetite for progressive rock so I give the album a try. Four and a half songs in and I'm about to drop the album and put it in my backlog since what I'm hearing is decent enough, but by no means the progressive rock I was so hungry for (some of the songs pop-y alt-rock sounding, and some some punk-y sounding, neither genre I'm very familiar with and might be mislabeling). But right as I am about to drop the album I hear an outro reminiscent of post-rock and gain some hope again.

What comes next in the beginning of song 6, "The Wallflower Equation", is something I lack the musical knowledge to explain properly. A droning vibrating synth bass note, with an angular higher synth on top to start the song off. A few seconds later faint chimes similar to King Crimson's Lark's come in along side some drone-y distorted guitars, both disappearing about 40 seconds later, taking with them the original vibrating bass synth as the vocals come in. At this point I'm fully hooked again and what follows can only be described as 50-60 minutes of some of the greatest stuff I've heard since my first ever time listening to King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King (the album that got me in to prog rock in the first place).

I'm pretty torn between 4 stars and 5 stars, since the first four and a half songs are nothing somebody coming in for a prog rock album experience wish to listen to. However, the rest of the album is so incredible that I feel required to put a 5 star rating on it. If you want nothing but the prog-y bits I recommend starting the album around 3 and a half minutes in to song 5 "Vitality Glitch"

If you can forgive some of the quirkier lyrics it is a must-listen in my opinion.

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