RUST. The monosyllabic title of the third LP from Swedish doom titans MONOLORD. Thomas Jäger, Esben Willems, Mika Häkki. Somehow these three men conjure so much rich sound from their instruments that they sound more like a seismic cataclysm than just three Swedes in a studio. That’s what they mean when they call Monolord a power trio. A triumvirate of heavy sonic assault. And RUST is all the proof you need.
The album opens like a ship shattering its hull over rocks with the devastating riff of “Where Death Meets the Sea.” Thomas Jäger’s ethereal vocals cascade over his brooding guitar during the verse, and when the song crescendos back into the chorus you can hear the strain; his voice becomes that of a man screaming from the surf as the billows drag ever down into the deep.
The instrumental sections of each track broil like seawater caught in a rift, a chasm off the coast where water never escapes from between the rocks but is pounded relentlessly against itself with each surge of the tide. The dirge of “Dear Lucifer,” with its plaintive chorus despairing over failing belief, is one of my favorites. It’s a perfect precursor to the title track. “Rust” was the first song released and its opening organ notes set the tone for the rest of the album. Beauty tinged with melancholy, swallowed up by the blast of the hypnotic riff that follows. “Rust” is followed by the instrumental doom lullaby “Wormland,” which introduces strings to the Monolord sound for the first time. A lone violin traces the lead riff over the band at the tail end of the song and it conjures images of wintry coastlines and copses, visions of a land beset by snow and darkness for months at a time.
“Forgotten Lands” erupts out of a wasteland of feedback like a mountain range being born, with an appropriately tectonic tempo. The earth breaks beneath your feet in a wash of cymbals as the guitar and bass ooze between the cracks in tandem. Head-nodding, mind-fogging doom, replete with Monolord’s signature continent-grinding fuzz. About seven minutes in the song descends into a caldera of noise, and the drums and bass weave a path through the shimmering feedback into a meditative bridge that becomes the second half of the song. “At Nicae” caps off the album with a fifteen-and-a-half minute raga that fades into acoustic chords for the last two minutes. The juxtaposition of clean acoustic guitar with the echo of Thomas’s vocals creates an eerie reflective space that’s perfected when acidic guitar tremolos sneak back in for the close of the record.
RUST marks a development in Monolord’s sound. It feels more polished, smoother around the edges than their previous releases. It isn’t quite as luridly savage as their debut, Empress Rising, or as bombastically heavy as its black hole follow-up Vaenir. Every seething second is still utterly Monolord yet RUST feels more melodic than the other albums. The closest analogy I can make is when AFI shifted from thrash punk to the more intricate and elaborate sound of The Art of Drowning. Beneath the layers of RUST is a pop sensibility that might be what leads Thomas Jäger to describe this record as more rock than doom in an interview on Into the Void. Don’t be fooled – the trio play their instruments with all the violent intensity of Jack Torrance doling out his medicine. The resulting record is so heavy you’ll have a hard time picking it up off the turntable.
You can buy RUST on vinyl or CD from RidingEasy Records here, directly from the band here, or ask your favorite local record store to order it for you.
Easton Connell 
Leave a comment