A first record for a band taking their first steps is both exciting as well as potentially harrowing when putting one's work out for others to hear. Monolith make that leap with their debut album, Eclipse, and to be completely honest, I admire the fact that this Pennsylvania four-piece put the record out themselves. Monolith is one of those "post-rock" bands if you need a genre to place them into for categorization or comparison purposes, and the intriguing case of this release is the fact that one can listen to the album minus any hyperbole; it is a chance to catch a "fresh" record.
Plucking guitar strings and a series quirky guitar leads (as the bass plays in unison and the drums lay a steady beat) while equal the almost five minute introduction to "Apparition" before the band hits on a heavier variation of the same riff while somehow not changing dynamically (the production sounds like there is no change in volume and takes away the effect of the obviously more stressed guitars); once the pounding part kicks into the aural sphere, Monolith seem much more at home from this point out (the two parts sound like two different songs really) with the distortion and the vocals do add a bit to the song. There are some nice guitar leads and riffing in "Ascend" which show that Monolith can set up a nice mood with their song arranging, and I dig the effect of the vocals being buried in the mix in this song. "Born of Fire" is a breath of fresh air on Eclipse as it gets right down to the business of knocking the listener's socks off their feet; this song definitely shows that Monolith has some real potential. Monolith continues this strong finish of Eclipse with the drumming and sparse guitar arrangement in the opening of "Descend"; this piece seems to pull together some of the ideas in the earlier tracks into a more accomplished bit of music.
The production quality of Eclipse takes away much of the effect of the dynamic shifts which Monolith put into their song arrangements; the recording comes off rather flat sounding as the bass guitar is audible but there is no bottom end to the record while the snare drum is noticeably louder than the other drums throughout the recording. The one guitar and the snare drum are very high in the mix and one struggles to hear some of the other instruments on the album. Monolith also overuses and abuses the plucking guitar string intros on the album, and these parts also seem to have little to do with the rest of the songs that they are part of in the first place making them rather extraneous, and several of the transitions between parts of songs are rough around the edges.
Being the first record from Monolith, Eclipse succeeds in some ways and fails in others. Presentation wise, the album might benefit from better art direction for the layout because the all black color with tiny dark gray lettering makes it difficult to make anything out liner note wise, and if there is any artwork (there is some subtle color changes in the blackness), it truly is unable to be recognized by the human eye. While the production quality on Eclipse is not the greatest, the five tracks on the album, particularly "Born of Fire" and "Descend", could be indicators of excellent records to come given Monolith sticking together, the band maturing a bit more in their songwriting, and better production. In fact, the band's song "Untitled" on the Anthrosphere Volume 1 compilation sounds leaps and bounds better than anything else on their album.
