Review Summary: Wave after wave of beautiful build-ups and climaxes, but by the time the album's over, it becomes hard to tell which one was which.
Every song on Mono’s
Under the Pipal Tree acts as a wave, engulfing the listener in its numerous, pretty melodies. The sounds are smooth and inoffensive, washing over the listener slowly but very surely, adding layer upon layer until the song becomes a tall, breathtaking wall of sound. The soft foam on top of the wave then trickles down, as the song begins to calm down, and retreat back into the ocean from which it came. The songs rise, crash, and fall, all beautifully. But this is not the only similarity they share with waves; all the songs seem to fall into each other a little
too well, to the point where all the similar sounds and formulas the songs use become hard to tell apart. Listening to the album is a similar experience to sitting on the beach, wave-watching for a few hours. Viewing the waves come up and come down, being soothed by their beauty and consistency, may be enjoyable at the time you’re doing it, but as soon as you leave the beach, differentiating between the memories of each wave in your head becomes disappointingly difficult.
The album first draws you in with “Karelia (Opus 2),” a 12-minute composition that aesthetically, very much indeed resembles a wave. It begins with a very timid, reserved guitar ringing that gradually gets louder and louder. It’s very intriguing, and definitely does a great job at drawing the listener in. Its first climax, at around the 3-minute mark, actually
sonically resembles a wave, reminiscent of the sound a wave makes when it’s close to finally crashing down on the shore. It’s probably one of the most captivating moments on the whole album.
The next song, “The Kidnapper Bell,” begins with a gradual guitar pattern similar to the previous track’s. Despite this fact, the album doesn’t feel
too formulaic just yet, especially considering this song is just as captivating as the last. A rather intricate drum beat makes its way into the song at just a little over 2 minutes, which is not only different from the last track, but also helps tremendously in setting an atmosphere for this song. “The Kidnapper Bell” also has another climax that’s absolutely awash with beauty, it’s almost overwhelming just how loud, unrestrained, and
climactic it is.
The intro to the next song, “Jackie Says,” is a very pretty guitar melody that also happens to be another one of my favorite moments on the album. But as soon as the drum beat comes in, very closely resembling the structure of the previous track, this is where the album starts feeling a bit samey. The song beautifully rises and beautifully falls, just like all the songs that came before it and all the ones that come after. And like I’ve mentioned earlier, most of the album’s build-ups and climaxes are
gorgeous, they’re just so similar, that once the album is over, the listener can’t help feeling a bit empty and, well, unsatisfied. With the aesthetic it uses, the album really could’ve gone on forever, because there’s no limit to any ideas the band is trying to display, there would be nothing to tell the band they’ve said everything that needs saying. And they certainly couldn’t run out of things to say, all they’d have to do is just keep writing more pretty build-ups and earth-shaking climaxes. Waves don’t ever stop rising and falling because they feel that they’ve said everything they need to say, because there’s nothing they’re trying to say. They just do what they do for the sake of it. (Or, technically, the Moon’s gravitational pull does what it does for the sake of it.) And that is virtually a mirror image of the mission statement of
Under the Pipal Tree.
You’re sitting on the sand, basking in the sunlight and thoroughly enjoying the silence and the solitude. You turn your eyes to the vast ocean ahead of you, and become fixated on the constant up-and-down motion of the pretty, blue waves. The large, captivating walls of water that seem to be able to wash away anything in their path. They rise up, they crash down onto the shore, and they crawl through the sand, back into the ocean that spawned them. After a few hours of practically being hypnotized by the waves’ motions, you decide it’s time to head home. And in your head, while you did very much enjoy the experience you just had, you couldn’t tell one wave from the other.
