Moneen "The Red Tree" (Vagrant)
By Peter A. Holden
Monday. Apr 17, 12:21 PM
Epic rage without negativity or darkness.

KABOOM! Moneen fly at you with a full-throttled rock blast. I do love a band that can rock-punch you straight out of the gate. And to think: with all the trouble I went through just trying to listen to this damn disc, I was inches away from writing these fuckers off (more on that later). But that wouldn’t’ve been fair in the least, as the frustrations I experienced had nothing to do with the music.

The Red Tree gets a bunch of stars from me. It’s a cavalcade of soaring guitars and fast paced rock. Following in the emo-ish trend, Moneen seem to know how to keep the momentum going. Five tracks in and you’ll still feel like you’re in an all-out sprint (no water breaks, either). Come track five, though, you’ll get your breather with “This is All Bigger Than Me.” Still a headcharger, but a bit more of a passive one. From beginning to end, The Red Tree is an energized, mature album with or without any previous work to show for it.

The Red Tree represents, from a songwriting perspective, a departure from Moneen’s previous approach to albums. Much like most hearty touring bands, it used to be 10 months tour, one month record, and back to touring just when their heels cool off for these guys. This time around, however, Moneen focused on analyzing the music more. For most musicians, overanalyzing your songs is hard enough because you always want it to be the best it possibly can. But because of the organic nature of performance art, sometimes the best comes out in two hours rather than two months. Moneen had, up to this point, been a mostly performance oriented band. But sitting down and writing more of a studio album is a valuable lesson for a band that focuses solely on their live shows. It adds breadth and depth to the music, the repertoire, and most importantly to the live show that was the emphasis in the first place. Moneen prove that, much like predecessors before them such as Dredg, a little change and forced growing pains can add those extra pounds needed to get to the next weight class and knock everyone out.

If I had to label them, I’d put Moneen somewhere between emo and epic rock. Emo is a dumb word and means nothing, really. It means “emotional,” as in the band can go from quiet to loud quickly. Fucking stupid. I’m saying emo here just to add a frame of reference for people. But Moneen are vastly more capable and carry more quality in their material than Hawthorne Heights or, I don’t know, pick some other whiny garbage. Epic rage without negativity or darkness. I think that’s the best way I can describe The Red Tree.

So, Moneen’s The Red Tree equals: very very good. Vagrant’s annoying copyright policies, however, damn near made me throw the disc out. First off, the packaging tells you six ways to Sunday why you don’t deserve to listen to Moneen: cause Vagrant does not trust you. Vagrant is just as skeptical of us listeners as the major labels. They assume we’re all gonna steal their music and distribute it wildly because we’re lazy and evil. As a consequence, they right-protected the hell out of this disc (“promo copy”) so that you can only play it in certain discmen and stereos. I normally review my discs on computer or in my car. If I like it, I spread the word. If I don’t, I throw it out. But I won’t go spreading music just to spite anyone. I couldn’t get this damn disc to play anywhere. When I finally did, I was quite pleased (as you know by now), but it doesn’t say much for the label if they feel the need to point fingers before you even sample the goods. Just a word of caution, Vagrant: CDs are getting harder and harder to sell. Don’t make it even HARDER to review them.
www.moneen.com
www.vagrant.com

Click here to buy this album on iTunes!

Click here to download the iTunes jukebox application for Macintosh or Windows!

Peter A. Holden

Got something constructive to say? By all means, rant away. Gonna blab about something unrelated and/or talk shit? Don't expect your comment to stick around.