Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
This year will be remembered for many things, so many events that it might actually overshadow the surrounding years around it when people turn their mind to writing the annals of the century; so many distinctive voices lost, so many people who have given enormous pleasure and the arsenal of self respect to others taken from us, that it leaves a darkness, a gloomy shade of pale bitterness in the lives of those left behind.
The 16th year of the new century might have taken so much but it is has also welcomed in so many others, new voices, friends reunited in their cause to bring the best music possible to the attention of the listener’s favourite ear and perhaps arguably none more so than The Mono LPS and their album States of Decay.
Blistering from the outset, the spectre in the corner starts to shudder under the immense power delivered and ultimately turns to dust as the full explosion of the band takes over; there is always room for sentiment, there is always space for taking on the world, you just have to make sure that the spectre of indecision is silenced, bound and destroyed.
It is the force of nature that The Mono LPS bring to both the live arena and the recorded sound that gives the heart the lift it requires and the jolt in the mind that is happily received; States of Decay enthusiastically, superbly, takes both the jolt and the lift and gives it a permanent place in the listener’s appreciation of the year. Fuelled by the Commander of the Bow herself Vicky Mutch, the dynamic flow generated between the admirable Ste Reid, Dan Beech and Chris Barlow and the lyrics that crash into the proceedings as if they are not only on fire but having been scorched by the heat of a super sized sun, States of Decay is a heavyweight champion taking on the world.
In songs such as You Make Me Sick, Give Her Love, I Don’t Love You, Watch The Games You Play and Emilia the fruition of a journey is understood, revelled in and left to destroy the impatient, the unwilling and the down at mouth; this is absolute quality from a band so long knocking at the door, one they deserve to be lauded and praised for; The Mono LPS are resurgent and booming with generous affection.
Ian D. Hall