MONO - Rays Of Darkness LP

Label: Temporary Residence

Rays of Darkness is the second of two simultaneously recorded albums by Mono that reveal related yet different aspects of their musical identity. Its companion, The Last Dawn, features the band's chosen instrumentation for all of its records since 2004: chamber strings, piano, lyric -- and often noisy -- guitars, basses, and drums. In contrast, Rays of Darkness may be the heaviest record in Mono's catalog.

From near silence the drums thunder and guitars emerge blazing, and the unnerving, harsh, half-growled/half-screamed guest vocals of Envy's Tetsu Fukagawa claim center stage. This unmitigated sense of tortured evil would sound right at home on an Enslaved record. There is only one place for Mono to travel to from here: dissolution.

So dark, bleak, and wasted is the sonic soundscape, "The Last Rays" simply dwells in noise and drones for its final six-plus minutes. Rays of Darkness is a recognizable yet more unpredictable, unruly Mono. This nightmarish album, combined with the haunted beauty of the more conventional The Last Dawn, results in the band's magnum opus.