MONOLORD
BLACKWATER HOLYLIGHT
THE UNDERWORLD, LONDON
In the best sense, are a shadow of their former selves. Every album has, revealing how much weight can be wielded in repose. There are still traces of Subrosa’s extraordinary doom travelogues, but on the likes of , the cadences and Allison Faris’s enervated yet entrancing vocals take on the resigned spiralling motion of a sycamore seed carried by a breeze. This is gently devastating magic being woven, uniting band and audience under its spell. are greeted as though they come bearing commandments. If the opening finds them in more wistful mode, the minute they switch into monotone chants and riffs start throbbing like spelling out a landing signal for The Almighty Galactic Obelisk, a sold-out Underworld is reaching a nearreligious state of rapt fervour. The Swedes might cleave explicitly to the Sleep/Om template of belligerent, bristling crunch and trance-state invocations, but tonight feels fundamental, as though they’ve been entrusted with the stoner staff of power and we’re all revelling at its might.
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