The full length debut from the Brighton-based quartet, The Waking Sun is an incredibly vivid portrayal of a day in the life of a mind plagued by years of strife. Yes, whilst many an artist in every sense of the word have committed works to documenting the inherent horrors of depression, dysmorphia and other plagues upon the psyche, it wouldn’t be hyperbolic to state that this record stands as one of the most authentic art-pieces of this nature. Some may scoff at such a lofty sentiment, but upon listening to this record one would be hard pressed to argue with such a statement.
Born forth from a lifetime of discomfort, here, El Moono use this distress as drive to step beyond their musical comfort zone to intimately seek for the kind of catharsis that can only come from years of longing for peace. There’s no reliance on stale conventions, no shoehorned gimmickry and certainly no lack of inspiration here; just the sound of bottled agony being decanted in a way that’s beyond the limited and quantifiable nature of genre. It’s intimate to a claustrophobic degree, violently tense and abrasively beautiful.
Whereas the band’s 2022 EP Temple Corrupted mainly addressed how depression and anxiety are embedded in our national cultural foundation and are fundamentally entwined with the DNA of our terminally ill country, this body of work’s scope is far more pinpointed. Instead, The Waking Sun is the vessel that hosts the decanted pain exorcised by vocalist / guitarist Zac Jackson. And while such a tight focus may imply a more narrowed sound, in total, the musical contents of The Waking Sun couldn’t be further from the truth. A post-hardcore foundation and hulking ironised riffs may be the binding crux of the sound of this record, but in truth to apply such genre tags feels chokingly restrictive and even insulting towards its nature. Truthfully, the sound of this record is the sound of the avatar of mental strife made manifest and something that sure as hell can’t be forced into a cute little pigeonhole for convenience.
With the record bookended by instrumental prelude and postlude of ‘Dawn’ and ‘Dusk’, here, El Moono scream, thrash, revel and flail across a spectrum of metallic noise. However, there is composure and elegance here – even undeniable beauty. As opposed to incomprehensibly vomiting forth the mental agony not unlike our dearest Reagan from 1973’s hit summer classic The Exorcist, here El Moono exorcise such thematic contents into a way that’s violently elegant. It still might make your head snap 180 degrees however.
As the record dawns with the first proper track ‘Illusionist’ all of this becomes apparent. Animated by Zac’s strikingly unfiltered lyrics, piledriving riffs and a sense of shivering urgency that can only come from a band driven by genuine purpose, the track perfectly highlights, introduces and encapsulates El Moono’s unrivalled penchant for mirroring the unwieldy of nature mental strife through music. Truly, it’s something made evident by the track’s shuddering, awe-inspiring breakdown, the pendulum between shoegaze and raw melodicism within the proceeding title track ‘The Waking Sun’ and the contrast between the ethereal beauty and eldritch horror within ‘Haunting’, tracks that respectively document the mundanity of living with depression and the abject nightmarish existence of living in a body that isn’t your own. These tracks may contain all the hallmarks to be expected within the familiar realms of post-hardcore, alt-metal and adjacent musical fields, but The Waking Sun is so far removed from what one would typically expect from these genres. This is in thanks to its most vital and evident factor; its sense of unease and the mercurial musical chemistry that stems from it.
In a fashion that’s reminiscent of Raketkanon, Sugar Horse and Palm Reader, The Waking Sun is host to a sense of creeping unease and dread that never shifts. Moments of release are present – such as within the steel-lined bedlam of ‘The First Man On Mars’ – but even then this sense of doom and fear never dissipates and only returns more compressed and palpable than before. The three track run of ‘Phantom’, ‘Screw Loose’ and ‘Marionettes’ are brilliant and memorable examples of this. As shivering synths and disjointed ramblings akin to the aforementioned Raketkanon make way to what sounds to the titular character of Doom having an abject psychotic break mid rip ‘n’ tear in ‘Phantom’, ‘Screw Loose’ enjoys an air of malice and mania that’s both playful and worrying. As for ‘Marionettes’, its composure shifts and shatters under the weight of a head most heavy and its iron-clad riffs courtesy of Jamie Haas and Harry Logan. Hell, despite being leagues apart musically, this level of unease is almost comparable to the work of Swans.
But even then, the more approachable and palatable tracks on this record are still host to this air of foreboding. Even the Deftones-esque ‘The Charm’ and ‘Chains’ are still wracked with this sense of unease that seeps into every pore. But to say this air of claustrophobia is off-putting would be a fallacy. Here, El Moono have crafted a truly remarkable and perfectly realised body of work that’s as intense as it is alluring and genuine, and whilst it’s constantly shifting musical components are engaging to be point of being overwhelming, anyone who has had to endure a psyche plagued by horrors will truly understand this record. As the wonderful, key-driven closer of ‘Soul Eclipse’ and ‘Dusk’ fades into the ether with a sense of genuine exhaustion that can only come from finally finding needed release, it’s difficult to visualise a record more authentic, genuine and immersive than this.