Mono Inc. is a thriving business. For twenty-five years now, the Hamburg-based band has been releasing albums one after another, and their growing success across the Rhine (from France's perspective!) once again illustrates the German appetite for rock and dark music in general. Darkness should not cause an existential crisis within the band led by veterans Martin Engler, Carl Fornia, and Katha Mia, joined here by a new bassist, Ilja John Lappin. Indeed, for the third time in a row, Mono Inc.'s new album is number one in the German charts.
Mono Inc. is a sure bet, and once again, the machine should never derail as this “company of insane” plunges us into a new succession of hits. We quickly get into the mood with In My Darkness, a new illustration of Mono Inc.'s talent for producing anthems with structures as predictable as they are irresistible. Immediately familiar, their music has lost none of its unifying power. Once again, it's going to get people clapping their hands at concerts! Riffs with a hardness close to industrial metal, a bittersweet mood between melancholy and hope, catchy choruses... While this mix of gothic metal, dark rock, and NDH may sometimes seem a little sunny with its catchy pop tunes that stick in your head, or even a tad too ornamental, let's quickly put it into context: Mono Inc. comes from a country that loves darkness, and where it's not always synonymous with tortured avant-garde weirdness!
At Mono Inc., darkness is a comfortable and familiar refuge, an energy that gives us strength (remember Children of the Dark, conceived as the anthem of a vibrant community). This helps us better understand the galvanizing power of the songs. Lost in Pain, Dein Anker, the choruses of Abendrot, the conclusion Ray of Light, a dawn where electronics and piano meet for a hopeful finale... there's no point in trying to resist, they'll be stuck in your head all day! Even in We Were Young, nostalgia is part of a mix of nuanced emotions that could be the pretext for a new hit. This doesn't prevent a few breaks where the melancholy becomes heavier, such as Fly, a twilight poem where the alchemy between Engler's vocals, here an effective vehicle for emotions in their monolithic gravity from which we still sense a form of youth escaping, and the heaviness of the guitars works very well. Later, Engler finds himself accompanied by a single piano on Nothing I Regret: Mono Inc. also remembers that the audience also likes to turn on the little light on their phones before clapping their hands even harder!
Mono Inc. is firing on all cylinders, releasing album after album, while also offering its fans live and symphonic albums. Darkness does nothing to slow down this momentum; for that to happen, Mono Inc. would have had to shake up its habits. On the contrary, this new collection seems to be a synthesis of their universe: lyrics in English, lyrics in German, and constant proof of their proven expertise and, of course, some crows! This is a comfortable album both for the band, who offer what they know how to do, and for their fans, who get what they want to hear. Their expertise in creating an instantly appealing formula and dark, romantic stories is undeniable, as long as you enjoy their emphasis on ornamentation and constant accessibility. While Mono Inc.'s music may not necessarily revolutionize your life, it has a comforting, cuddly side to it, acting as a bond between people, a benevolent and reliable rallying point, a dark beacon that you can follow with your eyes closed, confident that it will lead you to safety.
