Wanted to share a link of the full length debut of this project, “Monovoth” by one man project from Lucas Wyssbrod is an album that seethes, soothes, liberates bewitches, and scares in equal measures. It finds clarity amongst all the eerie atmosphere, grim soundscapes, noise, distortion and decay. We sat down with its author to learn a bit more about its content and get you in the mood tonight.
Uncovering the darkest corners of self is often preceded by echoes of grief, despair and sadness, which resound in monolithic soliloquy. Lucas Wyssbrod (MOSTRO, Golden Cannibal, Hail the Invisibles) captures this sojourn on Monovoth, his poignant dictum on Doom Metal.
Released on OCT 7 under Trepanation Recordings, MONOVOTH self-titled debut album is composed of 7 emotional,experimental and touching songs that tell a sci-fi introspective journey.
Comments Lucas: “The whole album has two main inspirations, one being emotional and the other artistical, artist Andrea Navarro did a piece of art for me and that actually kick-started and inspired me to imagine some kind of lovecraftian lore or background in which there would be some kind of interstellar death-mourn-worshipping cult, waiting and praying to a deity (which can be seen in the album cover).”
Sparking alight shadows within the album’s expanse, Wyssbrod elevates six finely wrought songs with searing, divaricate riffs, which hang around a speculative view of a great, dark beyond, where in a female extraterrestrial deity – a corruption of the notion the Catholic religion has of the virgin – is seen suspended in the voids of space, which, depicted on the album’s cover art, adds to the album’s aphotic alchemy.
Continues Lucas: “The whole album was a cathartic experience. Regretfully nowadays society’s toll on mental health is generally something we all are used to live with, but not everyone has the tools to cope with it, luckily I found music as way to express myself, but even as I had a couple of projects previously, I wasn’t able to capture how I was feeling, until I started writing songs for MONOVOTH.”
“While MONOVOTH has kind of a sci-fi theme lurking around (and an eerie one at it) its main core, it was fueled by my own inability to express my feelings and mental health through music.”
“Therefore, in a sort of “planets aligning” moment, artist Andrea Navarro shared the artwork that ended up being the album cover and it jumpstarted a combination of sounds, imagination and melancholy that defines this record. An interstellar death-mourn-worshipping cult (something I started on the “Laesura” single cover art) praying and waiting for their destructive death carrying deity (which can be seen in the album cover).”
Luminous and lumbering in marvelous disquietude, Monovoth will assuredly find favor among fans of Bell Witch, Mizmor, Sunn O))), and Gorguts, while solidly standing in its own signature notation on Avant-Doom.
“After writing the record, I decided to share it with few selected friends that ended up adding some arrangements, everyone’s addition ended up being so marvelous and outstanding and those selected songs ended up being even more haunting and melancholic than before, from the mandolin arrangements from Franco Colautti on “Cerro Sangre” to Federico Ramos eerie guitars in “Tace Dolorem”. Everything had a sentimental blue note ringing out for everyone that felt the same way.”
Track by track commentary:
The Key is the album opener; the idea was it to have this grandiose and epic aura, like an exposition to everything that you might hear on the album, condensed and dramatized from heaviness, deep space and sad melodies. The ending is a drone/noise frenzy recorded entirely with a four string bass with guitar amps.
Ulcerated & Ablazed was thought out as the most “creepy” of the bunch, the crescendo climaxes with both guitars off by a semi-tone, creating a dissonance that is a call to madness.
Servants is about submission, recognizing our failures, meditating on our past mistakes and moving on.
Tace Dolorem is the most “song-driven”, the melody at the end is something that came out of nowhere and to this day, I find myself humming that melody every now and then. This was the first song I did for MONOVOTH; its title means to “silence the pain”.
Hands is a song about loss, it was generally thinking about people that is no longer around. My friend Andrew Notsch (ex-Sunless, Manipulator) was kind enough to recite a couple of words for it, in a way closing the circle; a song about people that is no longer around, with someone new to my life making an entrance.
Laesura means “harm” or “damage”, this one was more of sonic approach to see how far I could carry out a melody and build upon it, truly creating a haunting hellish landscape with a bit of hope in the end.
Cerro Sangre was a melody I had around for a while, that Franco Colautti made sure of spicing it up with several instruments, creating a Ry Cooder vibe, half end-credit scenes, half Mountain View after a long introspective walk.
