Album review: Saturnia Regalia
By Monomyth
Released by Mint Records
Halifax’s Monomyth deliver an entire summer’s worth of psychedelic-pop wtih their album Saturnia Regalia.
While they associate themselves with United Kingdom psychedelia and shoegaze, their Halifax roots come through in their music.
Through the open spaces of melodies, we get brief glimpses of east-coast indie bands like North of America, and Thrush Hermit.
The end result is an upbeat, friendly album that flies by in the blink of an eye. Poppy guitars and a trio of vocalists keep it interesting for awhile, but the sound becomes too familiar by the end.
The album opens with “(Theme From) Monomyth,” which features the catchiest riff of the entire album.
The simple dancing guitar melody mixing with vocals sing in a Lou Reed cadence. A slowed up, spaced out chorus is the icing on the cake for the textbook poppy jam.
“Pac Ambition” lumbers on using a descending riff intersected by harmonic choruses that display flashes of the band’s darker potential, while the next track “Patsy” is a bright tune that sounds like a psychedelic take on high school dance standards. The drumbeat waltzes along behind bells, whistles, and an ever-present twinkling guitar.
“Candleholder” features poetic gems such as “You’re the path to nowhere/and I am easily read.” Musically it sounds like another take of “(Theme From) Monomyth,” only this time with a groovy guitar solo added in.
“Medicine Man” opens with a raging punk guitar then jumps into a key-shifted version of the album’s opening riff atop a pair of backup singers. The song continues to shift erratically. A drum build-up into a squealing guitar solo enter the song a minute in and then it breaks into the psychedelia once more. Just when it seems the song is going to end, one more solo is thrown in for good measure.
While many of the lyrics get lost among harmonies and a wall of sound, “The Big Reveal” features image-heavy lines such as “I saw a spider web/hanging gently in the breeze/turns out it was just the moonlight through the trees.” Atmospheric guitars help set the tone in the beginning but fade into the background on the coda. The album rides out on a few more soaring harmonies to the song’s tail end.
It is a fun listen, but the wall of sound gets tedious. The pretty guitar melodies cut a little too sharply at times. If the vocal harmonies were crisper, Saturnia Regalia would be a more pleasant front-to-back listen.
On the whole, it’s an album that could use work but feels right at home clinging on to the few days of sun and warmth left of summer.
