I’ve always been a massive video game nerd and the aspect of a game
that will often make or break the experience for me is the music. If
you’re going to be spending a large chunk of your life with a game then
the soundtrack had better be good. All of my favourite games are
irrevocably tied to their soundtracks and while many modern video games
feature sweeping cinematic scores that attempt to match the epic realism
that 21st century graphics afford, I’ve always had more of a penchant
for the simplicity of a good old fashioned 8-bit tune. It always amazed
me the way composers such as Nobuo Uematsu and Koji Kondo squeezed so
much adventure, joy, sadness and so many other mixed emotions out of
such humble components and technical limitations. In many ways these
limitations facilitated greater invention and creativity with the use of
sounds and melodies to emulate drums, guitars or even entire
orchestras.
Something tells me that the chaps in MONO have spent
more than their fair share of time playing video games like The Legend
of Zelda and the Final Fantasy series at some point in their lives but
they take this influence and play it with the 21st century sheen. Their
music has the kind of cinematic quality you come to expect from any band
widely labelled as “post-rock” but the larger-than-life, overly emotive
melodies that the band orchestrate sound like they began life in an RPG
rather than a movie. And just take a look at those song titles;
“Legend”, “Nostalgia”, “Dream Odyssey”, “Unseen Harbor” and “A Quiet
Place” – tell me they don’t sound like the kind of place-holder, vaguely
descriptive or completely referential titles that a game-composer would
create, like “Lost Woods” or “Boss Battle.” Hell, I’m surprised they
didn’t name a song “Tamaki’s Theme” in honour of their bass-player.
But regardless, MONO are impressive; opening track “Legend” lives up
to its name and in rather grandiose fashion it must be said. A beautiful
frenetic guitar melody builds to a crescendo of drums, crashing cymbals
and the strings of collaborators the Wordless Music Orchestra. You can
almost picture sweeping camera shots of snowy mountains reflected in
still lakes, lush forest land with horses galloping with their fetlocks
blowing in the wind, and in the distance – a setting sun. “Nostalgia”
evokes similar imagery with a creeping sense of sadness which bleeds
into “Dream Odyssey” on beyond. One thing you can say about MONO is that
they manage to create a cohesive, consistent mood throughout the album
and they are masterful composers of lush, quasi-classical, guitar-based
post-rock.
However, for all its beauty, it has to be said that there is an uneasy sense of familiarity throughout For My Parents.
Only one or perhaps two of the songs take their slowly building
melodies into unexpected or not-the-obvious areas. Even in the early
stages of each song you can kind of predict where the song is going to
go and more often than not you will be correct. As a display of
compositional understanding and musical chops, For My Parents
can’t be knocked – it packs an emotional punch and is, at times,
breathtakingly beautiful (see “A Quiet Place (Together We Go)”). But it
also washes over you in much the same way that many orchestral scores do
which means that when it’s all over the melodies just kind of evaporate
into thin air. Ultimately, this is a good album, but what I’m saying is
that as far as soundtracks go, this is more Final Fantasy XIV than
Final Fantasy VII and any game nerd will know what that means.
[Originally published by the Sleeping Shaman, 15/01/2013]
http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/album-reviews/m/mono-for-my-parents-cd-lp-2012/
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