StartTheMonkey, a post-metal experimental band, has been weaving stories through their music since May 2017. Their journey, punctuated by lineup changes and a global pandemic, has culminated in the creation of “Urban Psyche“. This album, clocking in at 35:10, is a testament to the tumultuous emotions of urban life, echoing tales as old as Plato and as recent as the struggles of quarantine.
Beneath the looming Parthenon, four musicians came together, each bringing their distinct voice to the ensemble. Dionusis Kiamos’ strings resonate with tales of old, while George Papaioannou’s drums beat out the rhythm of modernity. Bassist Manos Analabidakis lays down the foundational melodies, as Iasonas Gousas, the vocalist and flutist, breathes life and narrative into the soundscape.
Their first foray into the world of recording bore fruit in April 2020 with their EP, “The Start Of The Monkey”. However, the world had other plans. As the pandemic gripped the globe, the music halls of Greece remained silent.
“Urban Psyche”: A Metaphor for Modern Struggles
The pandemic, however, was a mere backdrop to the real stories the band wanted to tell. “Urban Psyche” was more than just a collection of songs. It became a canvas, painted with the raw emotions of living in a bustling city, of confronting the shadows of one’s mind, and of grappling with historical and personal trauma.
“The whole album is about the negative feelings that one feels in an urban setting, written during the quarantine, with many emotions seeping in from that time in our lives.”
The tracks span a range of themes, from “Why“, a contemplative piece reflecting the angst against Western political policies and their consequences, to “Cave“, a profound musing on the anxiety of modern city living, drawing inspiration from Plato’s allegory of the cave. The narrative continues with “Deadly Crime“, an exploration of depression and its debilitating grasp, and “Strength of Suicide“, a harrowing journey through the psyche of someone on the brink.
The soundscape of “Urban Psyche” was honed in A11 Studios, with the expert touch of Kostas Gerochristos (Decipher/Lucifers Child) guiding its mixing and mastering. Haris Tsikleas’ artwork encapsulates the album’s essence, offering a visual representation of the raw emotions contained within.
StartTheMonkey’s “Urban Psyche” is a reflection of the band’s journey, of the city they call home, and of the universal human experience. The band invites listeners to embark on this introspective voyage, to confront their own urban psyches, and to find solace in shared experience. In a world that can often seem overwhelming, there’s comfort in knowing that others too, are navigating the same complex emotional landscape.
Today, we dive deep into each and every track from the album, explained in the band’s breakdown below.
Why
It’s the one outlier song of the album as it mostly focuses on the anger of one towards the western leaders and church with the external political policy’s especially in the middle east with the war against terrorism that they created, there’s also a historical influence from the crusades.
The thing is its not a political song per say but more of an emotional reaction to that situation an irrational view of the events, as essentially outsiders but also as Greek’s we have had the blunt of the immigration come to us so we have seen the damaged dealt to these people.
Cave
The theme is about how one is trapped inside his own mind afraid to express the emotions and true self, afraid of hurting one self and or others in the process of expressing said emotions and in the process of hiding in the proverbial cave one is also afraid of the perceived society around them, in the end the fear cripples them and there never leave the cave.
The inspiration for the lyrics comes from the anxiety one may feel in a modern city and more specifically the cave that is mentioned is from an allegory of Platon an ancient Greek philosopher which is a story of some people in a cave tied together with a chain facing a wall and seeing the enlarged shadows from the people outside and thinking there giants. The real story is about something unrelated to the theme of the song.
Deadly crime
This song was written years before the album was even conceived as an idea , it’s basically the spring board for the concept of the album , it specifically talks about how depression takes everything from you and makes you feel that its your fault.
The lonely feeling it brings and the void you feel inside debilitates you from seen things correctly and no mater what efforts you make to be better you perceive that you’re failing and want to die hence the name deadly crime .
Strength of suicide
This song is self explanatory as in the title explains the theme of someone contemplating on committing suicide.
The song goes through the thought prosses of trying to commit the act in the begging its coming to grip with the fact that you want to commit suicide , then with the how to do it the first few options are not going to work for this person for one reason or another and then they feel dejected that they didn’t kill them self’s feeling less human than they actually are and at the end of the day the commit suicide and feel free and find them self’s six feet under .
Passage 1
This song is directly correlated to Strength of suicide as the theme and inspiration came from it. It is three paragraphs that the singer wrote him self about the daily life of one with severe depression and the monotony of the urban office life and during this persons life they find some sort of simile of happiness but again they feel the monotonous life style come back and no matter what they do its still returns , so they come to the conclusion that maybe its best to end there life.
For this song the singer (who writes all, the lyrics) couldn’t find fitting lyrics for it as the music was written before he come to the band and there’s also some deep personal emotions tied with this song and the singer felt it thus decided to write some paragraphs as if taken from a book and thus that’s were the title of Passage 1 come from.
