Review Summary: Predictable yet fun djent-infused metalcore held together by impressive vocals and excellent production that hints at the band's potential to form its own identity
Monuments has reinvented themselves more times in the past decade than Pink Floyd. With enough past members to create two other bands, it could be difficult to find a reason to stick with the band. Fortunately, their new vocalist, Andy Cizek, breathes new life into the band with a range that adds much needed diversity for a group still trying to find themselves.
In Statis is the group's most accessible effort to date which is equally a blessing and a curse. Though some of their best work is displayed here, other tracks fall into a cookie-cutter formula that the genre is already flooded with.
“No One Will Teach You” is a catchy opener with some mesmerizing vocal effects that add some variety to the overall record. Unfortunately, we don’t hear anything like this again, but at least Andy delivers incredible performances throughout. The first two singles follow and are some of the standouts on the record. Andy’s cleans go from soft spoken innocence to tingling belts in “Lavos” and his ferocious screams are impressive. The duality presented here adds so much to the atmosphere of the track. “Cardinal Red” is easily the best heavy track on the record with guitar licks that harken back to 2010 bands like This Or The Apocalypse.
“Opiate” offers up some great riffs yet sounds like something I’ve already heard before. Not every band has to reinvent the wheel, but it becomes tiring when it feels like somebody is copying another person’s homework and lazily changes up a few words to call it their own. I actually enjoy the song, but it sounds like this could’ve been on Veil of Maya’s previous record. “Collapse” and “Somnus” fall into the same trap, but with less interesting riffs.
“Arch Essence” changes things up, giving some much needed presence to the bass. Even though the guitar work sounds like Tesseract worship, Andy again adds enough of his own touch to give it its own identity. Spencer’s feature is a breath of fresh air after a couple meandering tracks, but the mix on his vocals sounds particularly muted. It's an additive feature, but I can’t seem to feel like it’s something that could’ve been addressed.
“False Providence” is another standout track on this record delivering an infectious chorus, and the rhythmic merge of guitar and vocals in the verses display that this band can be so much more than what this record shows us. Every instrument on this track adds to the other much like “Cardinal Red”. Both feature Mick Gordon, and makes me wonder how much influence he had on the overall structure of these tracks. I just can’t help but be disappointed that three of the four best tracks here were singles.
The “softer” guitar sections of “Makeshift Harmony” are what this band needs to explore more. By the time I got to this track on my initial listen, I realized the most boring tracks are the ones where the band decides to take a breakneck “djent” structure that lacks all diversity to allow Andy and the synths to breathe. The monolithic closer “The Cimmerian” is the prime example of this, giving us dreamlike melodic sequences that compliment the choruses more than the “heavy verse-clean chorus-heavy verse” approach seen in every -core band today. We even get an acoustic moment midway through that expertly blends with a drum buildup that swells into the best vocal moment on the record. This song is exactly what Monuments should use as a template for their next effort, and is easily the standout here.
With what seems like the bands third debut,
In Stasis is a good effort that is still stricken with the same identity crisis previous records struggled with. It is undoubtedly the group's best effort since
The Amanuensis and has their best tracks to date, but part of me wishes they explored their progressive side more. “Lavos”, “Cardinal Red”, and “False Providence” highlight the bands talent to compose incredibly infectious metalcore singles, but “The Cimmerian” shows they have so much more to offer than what we’re given.
