Blind Monarch
What is Imposed Must be Endured

I guess it could be a challenge for the monarch who is blind, and in that regard I guess the blindness that is imposed has to be endured. Otherwise, I can think of the title in terms of how I felt when enduring this album for several spins before finally putting words on paper into this review text. It is a British quartet that is this monarch, and they are giving us an album with a really dramatic cover artwork, and in that regard it is understandable that a coughing record label finds it to be a good idea to release this album on vinyl. It was originally released in 2019, I got it then as well but never got around to review it but this time the album didn’t avoid my curious ears.

When listening I found this sludgy and dark doom metal album, with slow and slurry songs we endure a fifty-five-minute album over four tracks. I think dirge is a good way of describing this album, like a funeral dirge or something akin to that. The production is pretty decent, not the best I have heard but it works, and it isn’t the most varied release ever produced. The vocals are of the grunty kind, the one where you can’t quite make out the words without really concentrating, I never really found out if there was any substance to the lyrical content, I wasn’t that interested.

Fact is, that this album don’t really fly. It is a gloomy and heavy affair that does have its merits in the atmosphere and the depressing feel it conveys, but it does become too much too fast, and eventually I find myself not really caring. The songs feels more or less the same, and I mostly end up thinking of other things when listening to this album. I have a hard time focusing on this album, it isn’t dramatic or captivating enough to really draw me in.

I think we do really well without this album, there are just so many better ones to choose from so why would I select the one that gives me no joy? If you are bored and want to be more bored, or just wants to feel depressed for a while, then it should be a fine album for you. I will take my chances elsewhere; I am pretty sure that I don’t need to look for long in order to find a better one.

HHHHHHH