Encounter the Monolith thoughts

http://www.metal-archives.com/review.php?id=264428

Reviews for Martriden's Encounter the Monolith

Write a review for this release.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If Galactus & Arthur C. Clarke started jamming... - 87%
Written by autothrall on February 20th, 2010


I was immediately transfixed to the cover image of Martriden's sophomore effort, Encounter the Monolith, for the comic book meets Arthur C. Clarke aesthetic it inspired within me. But having little to no recollection of their debut The Unsettling Dark, I was not sure what to expect of the contents. Montana is not a place I tend to associate with a strong metal scene, though its low population seems perfect for the isolation required of more extreme acts that fall into the black metal, black/folk or ambient spheres. Lo and behold, Martriden offer living proof that the bluffs and woodlands do in fact shelter such monstrous imaginations, for this album is like a juggernaut from out of nowhere, that lifts you by the neck into the cosmos and then dashes your brains out against the nearest planets, asteroids and moons, at the same time hammering your brain with the hidden lore of the universe.

Style wise, they merge massive death metal rhythms with sneering black rasp vocals, all the while fashioning a symphony against the black landscape which smells with glorious atmosphere. We're talking birth and end of the galaxy all at once here, for their tones imply both space opera and science. Encounter the Monolith indeed...a journey of crushing weights offset with astounding segues of lightness, jerking the emotions of your insignificant human life down to the trilobites from which your distant racial memory has bloomed. The production of this album is simply unreal, superior to most recordings from far more cash-endowed, famous bands. It sounds like it was recorded on a bigger budget than something like Fear Factory or Mnemic, and yet features some of the similar, mechanical rambling in the giant, chugging rhythms. That is not to say there is any nu-metal or cheapened groove here, it's all presented like a body of rock rolling through space, sure to bring doom to any terrestrial body it meets.

The musicianship, while competent, is never showy or flatulent. Each bass and guitar line, each drum fill, all complement the darkness of the track between them, as do the synths, which glare into the firmament to provide a theatrical score to the titan-like movements of this cosmic bodies. There are six tracks and 45 minutes of music, so expect more than your share of drawn out material. To Martriden's credit, though, they make every moment so involving that the time will simply pass on by, sweat gathering on your brow as you feel like you've just witnessed first contact with your Creator. All of this praise having passed my digits, I do feel that the band does often lack in the truly memorable songwriting department. There are many solid, constituent riffs, and certainly the sum of these = full immersion to the experience, but few that I'd point out as 'you HAVE to hear this'. My favorites would probably be "The Three Metamorphoses" and the title track, but there is nothing here that lacks effort or full conviction to the ideals of the band's higher mysteries.

I keep wanting to circle the sun with all manner of interstellar metaphors, but coming back in to earth for a landing, I feel compelled to offer the bottom line: Martriden is a great fucking band, and we have very few acts here in America that can create such a gripping hybrid of black and death metal in such hi fidelity sound. Raw, primal kvlt black metal this is not, but an outburst of modernized vision from which the musical genre is but the larval stage. If Galactus started a metal band inspired by the novels of Clarke or other sci-fi isolation luminaries, it would probably sound like this one...just imagine that.

Highlights: Colossal shapes crashing and careening through a vacuum.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com
 
http://metalcrypt.com/pages/review.php?revid=5705

I have been following Martriden's career since their 2006 debut EP, and I thought their debut album The Unsettling Dark was a startlingly musical slab of feral aggression. This, their second full-length release, already shows Martriden pushing against the boundaries of their chosen genre and striving to create original, interesting music. Encounter the Monolith is not at all what I expected, but is a fascinating sophomore album nonetheless.

The musicianship and the maturity of the songwriting is really noticeable here, as without leaving their aggression or heaviness behind Martriden have created music that is always surprising and much deeper than it appears at first glance. I would call this progressive, but the playing is never showy, and the band's restraint and tact in the use of their individual instruments is really a pleasure. Nobody showboats or takes over the stage, and the band creates a really unified sound with the melding of their instruments. You get that sense, so rare these days, of a band working together, vibing off one another in the studio and feeding that group energy into the music. Martriden are still a Death/Black band, but not in the usual sense, as rather than just playing downtuned Black blasting they use Death rhythms and riff-patterns with an uptuned BM sound and big, melodic compositional style that recalls bands as diverse as Sear Bliss and Septicflesh. It is really difficult to pin down any other band to compare this to, as really Martriden have combined elements of extreme metal in ways that are new, or at least underused, creating a sound that is familiar on the surface, but unique in detail.

At first spin I thought this was not as good as The Unsettling Dark, as it is more sprawling and less aggressive, but repeated listens opened up the complexity and the satisfying depths of this disc. Martriden are a band to watch, as they are not content to simply tread water and do what is expected of them. This is a band determined to push the envelope, and there could well be greatness in store. This band is already doing great things, but a band this ambitious will not be content with that.

Label: Independent
Year released: 2010
Duration: 45:00
Tracks: 6
Genre: Death/Black

Rating: 4.75/5

Review online: March 26, 2010
Reviewed by: Sargon the Terrible
 
http://www.museofoblivion.com/clave/viewtopic.php?f=39&p=721

Martriden - Encounter the Monolith
http://www.martridenrocks.com/home.html

Martriden is EASILY the greatest thing to come out of Montana since my wife's family. In fact, I've been known, on numerous occasions, to proclaim that Martriden is the greatest new band to enter the metal scene within the last 5 years, period. Their debut EP, the self-titled "Martriden," is still one of the best CDs I have the great fortune to call a part of my collection. Even at only 4 tracks, it blows most metal out of the water in terms of technicality, brutality and sweeping grandeur. Not since Opeth's "Orchid" or Insomnium's "In the Halls of Awaiting" have I heard a debut album with so much talent. Most bands have to develop an entire career and release a few albums before they finally find their groove! And even when they do, very few bands can still exceed themselves with each subsequent release. (Opeth was on the upward climb until "Watershed," in my opinion, and Insomnium, unfortunately, never improved beyond what they started with--which is still fucking impressive; don't get me wrong).

Martriden's first full length album, "The Unsettling Dark," proved that they had the musical talent to meet and exceed the high standard they set for themselves with their incredible EP, and their second album, "Encounter the Monolith," somehow, seemingly impossibly, goes even further. Since I always compare them to Opeth, I'll illustrate with a comparison: Opeth's first two albums were mind-blowing in terms of guitar technicality and atmosphere. Then, when Opeth hired bassist Martin Mendez and drummer Martin Lopez for their third album, "My Arms, Your Hearse," they defied all expectations of metal--not just their own genre, but all of metaldome, as a musical entity!--by blending jazz-influenced bass and drums to their already exceedingly-progressive style.

"Encounter the Monolith" is Martriden's figurative "MAYH." This is the album that will push them into legendary territory and redefine our expectations of metal entirely. I haven't been this impressed with a new band in a long time.
 
http://www.bayareametalscene.com/main/reviews/martriden-encounter-the-monolith/

I finally got a hold of the new Martriden album. For those of you that don’t know about this band, don’t feel bad – they’re more or less underground, although it’s becoming quite clear that they are gaining in popularity. Encounter the Monolith, released in February, is Martriden’s 6-track follow-up to the band’s 2008 album, The Unsettling Dark. I have to admit, that album is one of my favorite albums, so a follow-up album would already be at a disadvantage in my mind because of the pedestal that I put The Unsettling Dark on.

Monolith is just as blistering and intricate as Dark, but at only 6 tracks it kind of left me wanting a bit more at first. I can understand why there are only 6 tracks though – each song is essentially an epic masterpiece, oscillating back and forth between melodic and heavy. I happen to love that kind of writing style because it makes the heavy seem heavier, and the melodic seem more melodious. The final track by itself, Death and Transfiguration, is an instrumental coming in at over 10 minutes long, but my favorite tracks are probably The Three Metamorphoses and Encounter the Monolith.

I’m no science-fiction master, but it’s pretty clear that Monolith draws inspiration from movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and philosphers like Friedrich Nietzsche. If I had to describe the theme of the album, I would say it’s a cross between the story of mankind’s evolution and the perception that humans have of themselves of their role in the universe. Listening to this album, I could totally envision this as a way better soundtrack to 2001.

In sum, Martriden fans will definitely want to pick up this album and will most likely love it. I was a little skeptical at first of the fact that there were only 6 songs (at around 45 minutes total), but at a price of $7.99 (digital), you can’t really complain. Besides, the songs are so damned epic and great that you probably won’t even notice.

Overall score: 88/100. (Bump it up to 95 if you have another track or two).
 
http://www.rocknworld.com/thrashpit/reviews/09/Martriden_-_Encounter_the_Monolith.shtml

by Mark Hensch

Progression is an attempt to bring the future into the present. Keeping with this idea, Havre, Montana's Martriden test the boundaries of blackened death metal on their sophomore album Encounter the Monolith. Vast in scope, the band's latest recording pushes heavy metal into new stratospheres with a mix of mechanical pummeling and symphonic flourishes. Lyrically speaking, its state of the art assaults are complimented by Nietzschean philosophy as seen in Stanley Kubrick's science fiction masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. When combined, these components produce a modern killing machine which evolves brutality far beyond most of Martriden's contemporaries.

The first salvo launched on Encounter the Monolith is "The Three Metamorphoses," a mini-opus which marks a departure from the melodic, blackened death metal of 2008's The Unsettling Dark. Opening with eerie chanting straight out of 2001, the song next erupts into a whirling vortex of blastbeats and tremolo melodies before collapsing into Meshuggah-esque grooves. Following this, the tune drifts into the vacuum of space, reveling in hypnotic drum patterns and angular chords emitted amidst somber choral effects. This in turn ends in tour-de-force when the band lets crushing riffs gradually morph into swelling, triumphant melodies among the best on the album.

"Heywood R. Floyd" is up next, its inhuman guitaring the definition of precision pulverizing. Stabbing harmonies occasionally undercut the aural steamrolling, letting the song explore vistas of cold, stark melody not unlike recent Enslaved. Warm bass notes float beyond driving riffs and wall-of-sound keys, producing an atmosphere of enlightenment found in the deepest space. Though heaviness is the main order of the day, "Heywood" ends with labyrinthine passages heavily influenced by progressive metal and delicate, lush keys.

"Discovery," for its part, launches into icy tremolo lines and blistering percussion. Darker in tone than the aforementioned songs, it chills listeners with an aura akin to an asteroid leaving the sun behind in the depths of outer space. Beyond this, it displays Martriden's hyper-speed capabilities by letting the band stretch out breakneck passages so fast they seem glacial. It's an interesting effect, and one which drives the song into mind-warping territory.

Equally potent is "Human Error?" a song which should slay groove fanatics with ease. Brief in its devastation, the technical wizardry at play in "Error?" wears down eardrums into paste with an unyielding persistence. Buried deep within the chaos are squealing harmonics and glossy melodies, the likes of which counter the massacre with moments of beauty. Sparse and savage, it is the most ferocious cut on the entire album.

In contrast, the gargantuan title track is among the disc's most mesmerizing compositions. Beginning with some stellar death metal, "Monolith" eventually shifts gears entirely by transforming into a soaring passage of psychedelic chugging. Replete with angelic vocals, it marks a rare moment where the ethereal meets the extreme before vanishing again in an onslaught of metal.

The instrumental "Death and Transfiguration" closes things out by gradually unfolding its intricate nuances. Kicking off with soft acoustic notes, it next balloons into organ-laced dissonance before dying down into jazzy meandering. Blasting off with a killer riff, the song next travels through a well-orchestrated microcosm of the previous songs' textures and tones, ending things with a complex summary of the album as a whole.

Equally cerebral and bludgeoning, Encounter the Monolith marks a promising next step in Martriden's continuing progression. Though fans of recent Behemoth, Enslaved, and Meshuggah will all feel at home, Martriden have cultivated a sound which is definitely their own. For anyone who hasn't discovered this fantastic band yet, this is a great place for first contact.

Martriden - Encounter the Monolith

Rating:9.5
 
http://www.nocleansinging.com/2010/05/26/martriden/#more-12048

Sometimes when we listen to metal, we just want to get mentally pulverized. Sometimes we want to get lost in something sweepingly complex that requires serious attention. Sometimes we want to be transported by something that’s beautiful as well as powerful.

Rarely, we find music that accomplishes all those objectives at once. Martriden’s latest album Encounter the Monolith pulls off that hat trick.

One of our faithful readers (the always astute Andy Synn) recommended Martriden to us, and man are we glad he did.

This music (released in February) puts us in mind of a Pacific storm surge assaulting a rocky coastline. Waves of “symphonic” black metal crash with explosive force against jagged stone (as at the outset of “The Three Metamorphoses”), and then the wave-front recedes in passages of relative calm, and the band shifts into prog-metal instrumentals reminiscent of Opeth.

The intensity builds again to full force as storm clouds roll inexorably overhead, heavy rain batters down (with Meshuggah-like pummeling, as on “Heywood R. Floyd”) and megatons of power explode with brute force.

And then at times, as in the beginning and middle of “Death and Transfiguration,” and unexpectedly in other songs, we can imagine the storm passing and glorious rays of sunshine piercing the clouds, when quiet instrumental passages take over or clean guitar leads emerge with soaring melodies. (more effusiveness follows after the jump, plus a song to stream . . .)
Michael Cook’s vocals rasp like a rusted hacksaw, singing of the vastness of the universe and a solitary questing for something undiscovered and transcendent. The layered and constantly changing tones of guitarists Will Thackeray and Shane Howard are brilliantly conceived, and they prove themselves as adept at everything from chugging riffs to tremolo-picked waves of viciousness to flights of prog-metal extravagance.

Kyle Howard’s keyboards are not ever-present and rarely full-forward in the mix, but when they appear, they make just the right contribution to the sweeping atmospherics, and guest musician Brian Mueller provides solid bass support, with occasional prominent riffs that add to the richness of this aural tapestry.

Sam Murphy also appears as the session drummer on this album, and he deserves special mention — because his work is fucking awesome. Like the music as a whole, he constantly shifts styles and techniques, producing rhythmic variations that are integral to the songs and jaw-dropping in their execution.

The album contains only six songs, and most are long, with the instrumental opus “Death and Transfiguration” topping 10 minutes. But so much happens within each song that despite their unusual length, we still wanted more when the endings arrived.

This is intelligent, sophisticated music played with top-shelf skill. We know “intelligent” and “sophisticated” are bad words for some of you when it comes to metal, but trust us: This is a powerful album that’s as heavy as it is sublime, and it deserves a helluva lot more attention than it’s getting.

This band claims Havre, Montana as its hometown. Their first album was released through SOAR and Candlelight, though this new one is completely DIY. The band recorded it themselves, released it on their own, and even turned to guitarist Shane Howard for the album art. You can buy or download the album either from CDBaby or via the band’s website at this location.
 
http://www.themixeclectic.com/2010/06/multi-musical-monwednesday.html


If that lot isn't exciting enough, the discoveries continue. An article on Invisible Oranges alerted me to a new death metal album from Martriden. Encounter The Monolith is a concept album based loosely on 2001, and uses Martriden's ludicrously fast beat to good effect. It's a 45 minute, 6 track album, and when it ends it seems like an age, yet no time at all. Once your ears get used to the onslaught of relentless drums and some superb guitar noodling, it's hard to slow down to the more pedestrian pace of normality. Bought it yesterday and managed 5 listens already. Enough said.
 
http://www.theadversary.org/index.p...artriden-encounter&catid=54:cdmusic&Itemid=28

MARTRIDEN : Encounter the Monolith

Forty-five minutes of tripping metal. A big part of the sound is inspired by black metal and prog, and a penchant for long songs and exploration. These six songs in general have smooth transitions from faster parts, to proggy parts and the mellower/space metal elements.

This music requires patience and repeated listens: “Heywood R. Floyd” (8:42) makes it difficult to remember all the parts, since the mental traveling within the song is too much to understand in one listen. Definitely for the studious.

Who writes this music? Is it total metal nerds weeding out those with short attention spans or the simple-minded? Is it absent-minded musicians who pay no attention to time?

Who knows, but at least the following is clear: there are long segments without vocals; lots of proggy moments and black metal shriek style vocals.

“Death and Configuration” is more than ten minutes of mellow guitar work, keyboard/space moments, proggy segments, etc. It’s an instrumental song in which the band enjoy the twists and turns they have created for themselves.

But this band does have some easier songs. The title song (6:32) is a bit more straightforward, sort of “black metal/prog,” for this band. And actually, “Human Error?” (4:32) is an even more “normal” song with those shriek-growl vocals and proggy heavy parts. There are keyboards in the background of this song, for that big landscape feel. The band themselves likes to use astronomy pictures and images, which to them, we guess, is how they hear their own music: in terms of other worlds and other ways to write songs.

Listeners into long songs, proggy bands with a metal edge should have in this band a serious adventure that they need to investigate. If you like bands that think big-idea music. Good sound quality, too.

www.myspace.com/martriden
 
http://www.metalreviews.com/reviews/detail.php3?id=6367

Well, we’ve got quite a monster on our hands this time.

Montana based band Martriden have been playing their epic brand of extreme metal for quite a couple of years now. They released two albums, Martriden and The Unsettling Dark which are both unheard of by me. In fact, I found the band by accident from a list of recommendations from a friend. The awesome cover art drew me in first and convinced me to press play. The song was The Three Metamorphoses and if isn’t one of the best epic black metal songs I’d ever heard then I’d be damned. Everything about it stuck out to me, the songwriting was beyond excellent with twists and turns that eventually built to an outstanding climax. The production was big and crisp without having that soulless pro tools feel. And best of all, I was high as balls when listening to it.

So I went back the next day and took another listen, this time without the aid of auditory and visual stimulants and by God, it was just as good as I had remembered. I quickly called every record store in town and tried to purchase it. Problem is, right now the band is only distributing the album themselves which is odd since they are listed as on Candlelight records everywhere else online. I am unaware of the band’s label status, but after the release of this album there is no reason why they should have to do things independently ever again.

Could the rest of the album be as good as The Three Metamorphoses? Well… no, actually. I’ve come to find that it is by far the best track on the album. But still! I came to find that the rest of the album was still fantastic and well deserving of my hard to earn praise.

I don’t want to go into one of those “It sounds like….” speeches that seem necessary in reviews, but without spoiling too much. Martriden play an extremely epic form of progressive metal. It strays in and out of death and black metal so often that I will just stick with black metal just for the sake of argument. The themes on this album revolve around space, more specifically Stanley Kubrick’s astonishing film 2001: A Space Odyssey. After all, if clues like the album cover and songs called Heywood R. Floyd (One of the characters from the movie) wasn’t enough spacey geekdom for you, then I don’t know what would be. It transcends normal sci fi fare in the same way that the film did, everything seems bigger and more important.

Like I said before, the sound is huge. Guitars are expertly played on all songs. Intense tremolo picking alongside almost Opeth like melodies have no trouble weaving in and out of eachother. The songs are long, which gives them enough time to flush out their ideas and see them through. Great moments occur at such times as the ending of Discovery or the mammoth ten minute long instrumental Death and Transfiguration. And if I have to mention one band that these guys have been listening to a lot lately, it would namely be Opeth. Luckily, they avoid and distinct similarties, and it mainly comes down to the mood. Oh, and that they use a freakin’ mellotron throughout many of the progged out moments. If that aint proggy enough for ya, there ain’t much that will be.

Martriden came at a real surprise to me. I had the album nearly two months before the other songs clicked for me, but while listening to it over and over to prepare for this review my stance changed. It was always good, and the first song I ever heard was still excellent. But now I appreciate the album for being a complete monster, and something that any fan of progressive music or just really epic metal would die for. So please, buy the album from them. Because if enough people do it we might even get something better next time.



Killing Songs : The Three Metamorphoses and Discovery are by far my favorites Crash 91 / 100
 
http://brandnewmoods.blogspot.com/2010/08/173-martriden.html

I have been following Martriden's career since their 2006 debut EP, and I thought their debut album The Unsettling Dark was a startlingly musical slab of feral aggression. This, their second full-length release, already shows Martriden pushing against the boundaries of their chosen genre and striving to create original, interesting music. Encounter the Monolith is not at all what I expected, but is a fascinating sophomore album nonetheless.
The musicianship and the maturity of the songwriting is really noticeable here, as without leaving their aggression or heaviness behind Martriden have created music that is always surprising and much deeper than it appears at first glance. I would call this progressive, but the playing is never showy, and the band's restraint and tact in the use of their individual instruments is really a pleasure. Nobody showboats or takes over the stage, and the band creates a really unified sound with the melding of their instruments. You get that sense, so rare these days, of a band working together, vibing off one another in the studio and feeding that group energy into the music. Martriden are still a Death/Black band, but not in the usual sense, as rather than just playing downtuned Black blasting they use Death rhythms and riff-patterns with an uptuned BM sound and big, melodic compositional style that recalls bands as diverse as Sear Bliss and Septicflesh. It is really difficult to pin down any other band to compare this to, as really Martriden have combined elements of extreme metal in ways that are new, or at least underused, creating a sound that is familiar on the surface, but unique in detail.
At first spin I thought this was not as good as The Unsettling Dark, as it is more sprawling and less aggressive, but repeated listens opened up the complexity and the satisfying depths of this disc. Martriden are a band to watch, as they are not content to simply tread water and do what is expected of them. This is a band determined to push the envelope, and there could well be greatness in store. This band is already doing great things, but a band this ambitious will not be content with that.
 
Had a little dry spell there with the reviews for Encounter...but I found one here http://www.metal-observer.com/articles.php?lid=1&sid=6&id=17678

This is one of those “Can't see the wood for the trees” releases. At first listen you recognise that something involving is weaving its construct but further examination is required to see the detail of light dappling through the canopy, the mosaic of the foliage, the stoicism of the trunks and scurry of activity amongst the leaf litter. Once you've got your eye in though, there's plenty to explore within “Encounter The Monolith.”

Commonly labelled as Black/Death, that descriptive has faded since their last album, MARTRIDEN have have donned a pair of stout boots and gone wandering down far more progressive paths, these routes have led to influences that add new vistas to the band's compositions and that ultimately gives greater longevity with this more epic sound. Whilst the band sweep their brush across a wider spectrum, they retain a core of sophisticated Death Metal with Blackened influences, there is definitely concrete mixed into the kaleidoscopic display and whilst melodies frequently soar, a residual heaviness ensures that they don't break through the stratosphere. Still, that leaves an enormous amount of space for the band to express themselves within, and they certainly flex their creative muscle to the furthest extent.

I've mentioned the progressive nature of this album, well as the spotty gits were often heard to say; “I'll have a P please Bob.” Not only do MARTRIDEN send out adventurous filaments to add a lattice of refinement to their music, they embrace the Progressive too, never more so than on album closer “Death And Transfiguration,” which is nothing more than Humpbacked Prog Metal that goes from the thump to the sumptuous with uncanny ease. Whilst this final track is noticeably different to the others (quite apart from it being instrumental,) the distinction is more subtle than you would think, it's just that here the band have distilled the mix in favour of the more intricate. What precedes though has all the bastard hardness you would want, the band don't forget to devastate as they elaborate.

The atmosphere conjured depends on the listener but for me “Encounter The Monolith” speaks of man and machine and often the product of their joining, there's a mechanical intelligence underpinning the more cerebral creativity that gives life to the force of this album. MARTRIDEN are clearly comfortable with complexity, there's a flow that translates to a smooth ride even when there's some roughness to the terrain, they aren't bothered about who can climb highest up the tree and so the considerable clout dished out is commensurate with the prevailing ambience. Speaking of which, there is a sense of the sinister about this album, not in the staple occult fashion but in a way that suggests that the melding of muscle and metal, blood and oil is not going to lead to a glorious sunrise for Mankind.

Here's an album for when you don't want to be knocked senseless but would rather be seeing stars instead. There is a picture painted that will hold your attention until you're tripping over the resultant beard. Though there is a hefty persuasive punch in MARTRIDEN's arsenal, with their progressive panache, they've already got you.