ITT: Agro Asks Rai to Review/Analyze an Album

[Agro]

I've suggested Monarchy to you before, but after having issues with publishers after their debut album, they ended up crowdfunding their second. The result is something uniquely personal and scattered, but altogether interesting (at least to me).

 

So I wanted to get your thoughts. On the whole thing. Every track. Since you're the only person I know who talks about music. Also you're good at it. Also it makes me feel good when I read you talk about music.

 

 

They on Spotify if that would be easier for you to find, otherwise...

 

[spoiler=Here is every song off the album, tracked down one way or another:]

1 - Living Without You

https://soundcloud.com/monarchysound/living-without-you

2 - Dancing in a Corner

https://soundcloud.com/monarchysound/dancing-in-the-corner

3 - The Dream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVV6CEjhcLY

4 - It's All I Know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Zacp5TZiA

5 - Falling In Love With a Memory

https://soundcloud.com/monarchysound/falling-in-love-with-a-memory

6 - Almost Human

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cq3yh2Aq2c

7 - Disintegration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WfhclvXEVc

8 - Black Widow

https://soundcloud.com/monarchysound/black-widow

9 - The Beautiful Ones

https://soundcloud.com/monarchysound/the-beautiful-ones

10 - Fractured World

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIyvRY4g6VU

11 - The Wave

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJLuzsnEI4Y

12 - Like a Soldier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiJmLW4j8ls

 

 

[.Rai]

Finally got around to taking a listen of the album. I'm almost sick of synthpop, but not quite. It's the staple of pretty much all my music taste, so I never pass up on new synthpop music.

 

They definitely draw from the more clubby realm of synthpop (they really like their Europop synths). You have bands like CHVRCHES who are basically as close as you get to a synthpop interpretation of stadium rock, but there are other artists like Little Boots or Robyn (and Monarchy definitely fall in this group) that definitely play up the club and dance element of their music. Talking about Robyn, Dancing in the Corner is almost as fun a song as Dancing on my Own. I do wonder how inspired they were by that song. Pops up again on Almost Human, which feels like their writing prompt was "an R&B remix of Hide and Seek" (I like the song though, it's lovely).

 

That said, they do try to go a bit indie rock at times on the album, or otherwise just experiment with a random synth or genre influence that doesn't quite click properly. Falling in Love With a Memory comes to mind. Not quite sure on how successful those attempts are. Production seems a bit overcompressed on that track. Also, those two instrumental 50-second soundbyte tracks are completely unnecessary, in my opinion. They don't really add anything to the album's flow.

 

What definitely makes them stand out is that they have a really distinct style of songwriting. Very straight forward, no frills melodies that were really in vogue maybe five years or so back. People in the synthpop world have definitely moved towards that indie rock sound in chord progression and general melody writing to sound a bit more 'cool'. It's weird to say, but it's quite refreshing to hear the mid-00s sound pop up again (which I guess is also a revival of the late-90s Madonna/Kylie Minogue sound - Fractured World sounds quite Madonna - Ray of Light). Like a Soldier definitely does this as well. Very neat track off the album. Really nice soppy ballad. I think some people would disagree with me, because this sound does risk sounding awfully dated as it's probably one of the least trendy sounds out there at the moment. While 80s is making a comeback, it's very much new wavey, rather than club disco.

 

I think best tracks are probably Dancing in a Corner for just exemplifying all that's good about this sound (clean, catchy hook writing, honest song structures, good production) and Almost Human (for being the most interesting genre experiment on the album). Probably a very solid album. Other interesting tracks would probably be Black Widow and It's All I Know for being a bit more weird than the rest of the album and doing it fairly well.