UNDER THE PIPAL TREE

The Japanese MOGWAI? No, rather GYBE without samples and radical background.

I was going to give it 5 stars, but later changed my mind. Yes, it is melancholic and melodic in the way I adore (think of a bridge between MOGWAI's "Happy Songs..." and GYBE's "...Antennas to Heaven"), but after all this is just a Post-Rock. It MUST be that way beautiful I think. The highlights are "Human Highway", "Error #9" and "The Kidnapper Bell", but other tracks are good as well. Highly recommended especially if you're genre's fan - it's a Must.

Mono is a Japanese post-rock band formed by Takaakira "Taka" Goto and Yoda (guitars), Tamaki (bass) and Yasunori Takada (drums). Despite the fact of not being on the traditional core of post-rock, their debut album didn't bring much of new to the genre. Instead, their music could be described based mostly on Mogwai's aesthetics, borrowing most of Explosions of the Sky's guitar tone and celestial feeling and using Godspeed You! Black Emperor's minimalistic haunting crescendos.

"Karelia (Opus 2)" and "The Kidnapper Bell", almost twin tracks, represent an even more minimalistic paled version of Mogwai's centerpiece "Mogwai Fear Satan", but with the flute replaced by some GY!BE-esque violins on the first one. The only genuine difference, perhaps, was on transforming occasionally the post-rock cathartic explosions on vigorous distorted guitar jam soiling. "Jackie Says" sounds to much an Explosions in the Sky's contemplative peaceful hymn, as with "L'America", this particularly the album's one which they would be proud of making. The subtle "Op Beach" starts somewhere between Slint's depression and Mogwai's resignation, developing, more again, in the characteristic Explosions in the Sky's celestial breathes. The intricate "Error #9", one of the best, just recapitulates in the same way this ode to the post-rock icons. The album ends with the uncharacteristic, languid violin driven "Human Highway".

In the end, we have the feeling it is subtle and delicate enough to the genre, but its feeling evokes to much their post-rock heroes, resulting in a consummate dejavu.

Mono's debut album is a confident stab at the sort of post-rock sound pioneered by Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor. Unlike early works by those bands, Mono have no truck with shaky production quality or fuzzy found audio pieces to spice up their instrumental post- rock: they simply play away to their heart's content, and what they come up with is more than good enough to justify their faith in their music to hold its own without resorting to any atmospheric tricks (not that Mogwai or Godspeed ever used such tricks to cover for the shortcomings of their own music, but I'd say more than a few of their imitators did).