Elegiac post-rock from Japan for friends of world-weariness.
Everything about the music of the Japanese band Mono is great, and the dynamics of the pieces, which are between five and seven minutes long, are mostly structurally similar. Elegiac guitar melodies that first dance around each other in a somewhat tired world-weariness, then everyone hits the distortion pedals at the same time, the sun rises and a flock of white swans flies through the picture. Or something else sublime.
The beauty of SNOWDROP is at the same time what might be annoying about Mono’s music. The question “Thumbs up, thumbs down?” simply depends on the listener’s tolerance for kitsch. When the band steps up a gear, for example in the Mogwai-esque rock structure “Winter Daphne,” it becomes more compelling. The band delivers everything for two minutes, then the piece frays in a very pleasant way.
“Gebera,” on the other hand, is one of the most orchestral things the band has recorded since it was founded in 1999. Music for a winter landscape through which you walk and feel sad and at the same time suspect that everything will be more beautiful again from now on. Listeners for whom kitsch alarm bells don’t immediately go off when hearing symphonic rock music in widescreen format can have a lot of fun with SNOWDROP. And in this case that means: melting away in euphoric world-weariness.