http://youtu.be/NqYMvByv_0g
Review By Mark Granger
Release Date: 16 May 2014
Monument are metal. That kind of metal people think metal is. Not black metal, not thrash metal, and not power metal (okay maybe a little bit power metal). If you were to ask the average Joe on the street what metal is chances are they would envisage the music that Monument make. With a sound that screams NWOBHM and singer Peter Ellis’ voice pitched somewhere between Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson and The Darkness’ Justin Hawkins, Monument could almost have been genetically engineered from the DNA of dead NWOBHM bands. But they haven’t, because that would just be silly.
Instead they have crafted Monument into a modern day version of NWOBHM, New NWOBHM if you like, out of a love for the genre and damn they’re good at it. The music is over blown, the riffs are recycled and the vocals are at times ball achingly high but it’s done in such a brilliant way that they sell it completely. Of course it doesn’t hurt that the songs are, on the whole, excellent.
The title track kicks things off a ridiculously fast riff and a classic soaring metal chorus then ‘Fatal Attack’ comes crashing in like Iron Maiden if they’d never let their prog side take over. Elsewhere the album deals in more of the same with the galloping ‘Red Dragon’ and the amphetamine-fuelled ‘Rock The Night’ being particular highlights. The album closes with ‘Omega’, an archetypal metal album finale that builds slowly and via a (and I’m sorry for another Maiden reference) ‘The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner’ talky middle section which culminates in a fantastic crescendo of all things metal. If you like your metal with no frills shredding guitars and melodic vocals and long for the days when Maiden and Priest ruled the roost Monument are your new favourite band.
8 out of 10
Track Listing:
- Renegades
- Fatal Attack
- Crusaders
- Runaway
- Midnight Queen
- Red Dragon
- Carry On
- Rock The Night
- Save Me
- Omega
