MONK – We’ve Put Something In The Water EP
You know that feeling when you’re on the wrong side of the tracks and you start glancing down every grubby alley, checking over your shoulder to see if anyone’s there, shuffling through fly-tipped furniture at speed simply to get on through to the other side? Emboldened perhaps by a few tins of cheap lager, maybe linger a little longer next time though for these are the same streets Salford-based rabble-rousers MONK call home.
Caught in the darkly alluring orbit of infamous den of iniquity the White Hotel, MONK channel pure rock ‘n’ roll through an arty, hard-hitting electro lens and live they’re a pint-explodingly powerful proposition. With a promise of more material to follow later in the year, We’ve Put Something In The Water brings together just three of the band’s knock-out tracks, but as each hovers around the five-minute mark there’s plenty of time for each to build, fade and crescendo to make the meaty EP more of a meal than a snack.
A real workout for the oscillator, dank opening track “Get” fills its time luxuriously, dizzying cascades setting the claustrophobic tempo, filthy bass tones building up a sweat as they establish a killer groove, a metallic guitar sheen reflecting frontman Dan Broomhall’s gobby holler off every angle in the club. In turn, with mid-fi production toasting the recording, pad-driven pulses do the heavy lifting in “It’s You”, marauding electro composition mixing with sneering vocals to deliver a readymade dancefloor remix in which another strong melody punches its way to the fore.
The oldest track to be found here and also the most despondent, “Golden Tongue” closes with percussive rippling under a growing beat, a sense of sawing unease gnawing away at your insides like a rat in a tube, Broomhall just as threatening it turns out on We’ve Put Something In The Water when melancholy as he is when impassioned. And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water too!
Best track: “Get”
~We’ve Put Something In The Water is released on cassette August 16th 2019 via Ramber Records. Catch MONK live at The Talleyrand in Levenshulme, Manchester August 15th 2019 for the EP launch party.~