Review Summary: Not running on diesel anymore.
When
Ammonite became a moderate success in Japanese radio, Monoral decided it was time to create their first full album. The result was
Petrol, one of the greatest Japanese Alt-Rock albums of the mid-2000's. As with previous records by Monoral,
Petrol completely jumps between multiple genres including Folk Rock, Dream Pop, Synth Pop, Shoegaze, and Hard Rock.
It's quite obvious from the getco that
Petrol looks to distinguish itself from the previous two releases. For starters, it has a higher budget, with a higher sound quality and more instruments inserted into each song. A prime example of this is in
Healthy Sick Bastard, a Hard Rock track with two different versions of guitars, soft drumming, and voice fading. Props must be given to their first two tracks
Tente and
Frozen Peak, two Folk Rock ballads that contain a mix of cryptic lyricism and a small influence of Grateful Dead Folk-Rock. It's clear that Folk-Rock is a heavy influence here, showing up in pieces around multiple tracks. That doesn't mean it is exclusively with that, as
Nothing More Nothing Less showcases a great mixture of classic Rock and Shoegaze.
Petrol is designed as a debut, without actually jumping through the "hey guys I'm new here" hoops that most debuts get lumped with. Monoral didn't even remotely try to act like they were intent on attracting a larger fanbase. It is because of this reason that Monoral maintained their marriage of experimental insanity and mainstream appeal. Probably one of their more mainstream appealing tracks would be
Don't You Look Away, a straight Rock ballad with a clean guitar and percussion, nothing more and nothing less (pun intended). This is an album that is designed for nobody but Monoral, and that is what makes them attractive as a band. It's almost as if, with every album release, they are asking us "You like this？ Really!？". We do Monoral, we do.
In the more experimental foray of the album, we are given Synth/Psychedelic tracks like
Garden which is just odd. The guitar is droned while also being given a fade-echo effect, but the vocals are more of a slow Pop ballad. It gets even weirder, as
Like You is a Post-Grunge track with the usual guitar riffs, and nutty vocals with pop sensibility that is familiar to such a genre. By far, the best track on the album has to be
Tangled, a great Pop-Rock song with beautiful vocals, dense percussion, and an amazing vocal fade effect added to Anis' vocals.
The commercial success of this album isn't really a surprise, Monoral was capitalizing on the experimental craze within Japanese music in the mid-2000's, and yet at the same time, they were doing something nobody else in Japanese Rock was doing at the time. This, combined with their on-stage presence and paradoxical music, gave Japanese Rock fans a whole new outlook for where the genre could go.
