3.5 of 5 stars
Like many great things in music, Fin Fang Foom’s sound is built on tension. The Chapel Hill trio potently distills elements that just shouldn’t work.
Brutal intensity with delicate emotionality, primal fury with existential angst, vigorously adventurous rhythms with guitar lines so strung-out they seem like they haven’t slept for days — that’s the razor’s edge the band navigates.
In “Regret,” voluptuous bass opens dancing with cagey guitar, as piano plays ominously in the background. It’s a perfectly unsettling setting for bassist/singer Edwin Sanchez to unleash shocking metaphors.
“I tried to find an exit/But smoke just filled my lungs/I was trying not to panic/As my flesh was burning,” he sings, assaulting the listener’s psyche before the music erupts in flaming retribution. It’s an unrelenting indictment of a troubled mind.
But Foom isn’t always vicious. On “Lonely Waves” a musical elegy of violin and prickly guitar forms the backdrop for Sanchez’s beautifuly forlorn duet with his Bellafea partner Heather McEntire.
It’s when the band leaves behind this flexibility that it fails. On the tracks that stick to a furious bass-and-drums-with-controlled-guitar formula, the impact gets lost.
Still, when the band endulges in nuanced languor or lets loose a tumultuous cavalcade, Monomyth is hard to resist.
The instrumental title track is the best success in both regards. Disjointed piano paints an unease as guitar, bass and drums enter in an enthralling slow build. Then suddenly the band unleashes a lacerating onslaught that will have you worshipping at your speakers.
It’s not an easy trick. It balances brittle restraint with destructive force without letting either win out. And it’s when Foom manages to maintain this thrilling emulsion that Monomyth glimpses transcendence.
Contact the Diversions Editor at dive@unc.edu.
