monster movie/dreamend reviews (grave007)

This short little EP features the talents of England's excellent Monster Movie and an American outfit named Dreamend. The five song split EP finds Monster Movie contributing two songs to Dreamend's three and the pairing actually finds both bands complementing one another very nicely. Monster Movie, whom has gotten quite a bit of praise right here on these pages, gives listeners two more songs of their slumbering, dream-ridden shoegazer music. Both songs are a bit less involved and perhaps a bit more elegant in their simplicity. Dreamend, on the other hand, is an instrumental (at least for the needs of this release) outfit who stick to a feedback and guitar hazed infusion of sound and mood. The bassist underscores the shimmering guitar sound with a fluid structure while the guitars offer both tender leads and the aforementioned wall of sound. The similarity to Slowdive or My Bloody Valentine is there, but this is far from a bad thing. Their three tracks act a bit more like one extended track with segueways and exitways.

While the two bands have their obvious stylistic differences, their two sounds make this CD a very smooth, enjoyable listen. The dreampop crowd should make the effort to search this neat little EP out.

Review by John Chedsey

Review date: 12/2002

Just one listen to the first track of the Preface EP on Graveface Records and it feels just like 1991 again. The promo's description of 'space pop' is very fitting; it's a shoegazing pastiche and no mistake. It's no surprise, therefore, that Christian Savill, once of shoegazing pioneers Slowdive, is one half of the group. Its follow-up 'Nobody Sees' is more like country music for the future, or to take another slant, Mercury Rev via a vocoder. The second half of the EP is taken up by the 'Ellipsis' suite from Dreamend. The approach falls into the wall of sound category but instead of drawn out 10-minute epics it is delivered in three smaller, easily digestible parts, each boasting their own independent melody. A fine seventeen-minute appetiser that leaves the listener thirsting for more from this fledgling record label.

Leonards Lair

Monster Movie is a two-person group whose most notable attribute is that one of their members, Christian Savill, is an alumni of the down tempo wall-of-sound ensemble known as Slowdive. Apparently, when Slowdive recreated itself as the acoustically inclined Mojave 3, Christian bolted and with the aid of bandmate Sean Hewson injected Slowdive's stylistic use of heavy dollops of ethereal synth sound and depressing subject matter into a new artistic vehicle. Monster Movie's first offering to this split falls straight along these lines with the track "beautiful artic star," sure to be a favorite among the respective fan bases of Slowdive, The Cure, and My Bloody Valentine.

Their next and final track on this split, "nobody sees" is a horse of a decidedly different color. Rather than the high-production expanse of Monster Movie's standard fare, this track is about as bare bones as it gets with little more than a piano, a harmonica, and a set of whiney but sincere vocals driving this stirring ballad.

Which leads straight to Dreamend. The transition from "nobody see" to "...ellipsis...," Dreamend's three track instrumental journey, is really one of the best things about this split as it takes the listener straight up from a very stationary place of isolation and relative sadness onto the rambling path of a Mogwai-esque post-rock epic with all of its grandeur and minor explosions of guitar sound. The change of pace is not only welcomed but in some ways feels like an elaboration of the emotional reality introduced by Monster Movie and gives the split an almost narrative quality.

The only real concern I might raise with this split is the fact that Dreamend's offering, while entirely satisfying within the context of this release, doesn't really do anything that hasn't been done to death by bands such Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, or about half the bands on Temporary Residence. Dreamend relies heavily on the standard post-rock formula of quiet to loud to quiet on all three tracks of "...ellipsis..." and enunciates their main instrumental themes in ways that at this point are essentially textbook.

On the whole, though, Preface really isn't hurt by this mild case of artistic staleness and in fact might even benefit from Dreamend's archetypical post-rock sound in terms of its robust contrast to the isolated feel of Monster Movie's tracks.

If you're a music listener on the dreamier or depressive side of things, then Preface is one split you're going to love.

DFB.com

For seventeen minutes and twenty-four seconds the word demands to be said, so let's get it out of the way right now: shoegazer. Don't get me wrong: Preface, a quasi-introductory split EP between England's Monster Movie and Chicago's Dreamend, doesn't epitomize the genre, but it's loaded with enough ethereal distortion and barely intelligible lament that I felt the term should be brought out early on. It will come in handy later.

The two songs from Monster Movie should be glorious, with their overwhelmingly lush soundscapes and gently melancholy melodies. However, both stop short so close to complete bliss that the result is in fact quite frustrating; how could they possibly give up when the near-perfect song is just within reach? The first, "Beautiful Arctic Star," is ready to tear some shit up with dense vibraphones (synthesized, natch), a pulsing bassline, and Christian Savill's (ex-Slowdive) dramatically plaintive vocals – but the absence of any drums recorded above afterthought status in the mix (let alone played live) seriously impairs the track's ultimate power. The subsequent electric piano and harmonica lull of "Nobody Sees" (listed elsewhere as "Nobodies") would be an appropriate slowdown from the first song if only it had had the right force, but, as it is, the drumlessness of the second coupled with the impotence of the drums in the first leaves the Monster Movie contributions lacking.

Dreamend, meanwhile, take the opposite route, starting each of their three untitled (or maybe called "...ellipsis..." one through three, depending on your interpretation of the solemnly dignified packaging and the band's ridiculously pretentious website) instrumental tracks unimpressively but building them to astonishingly moving climaxes. Each song has essentially the same structure – whereby a hazily hypnotic melodic pattern is introduced and given increasing momentum until crashing into a wall of ruthless distortion – but predictability doesn't sap the awe and emotion in any of them one bit. 1 is the shoegaziest of the lot, 2 is a little more energetic, and 3 resounds pleasingly with the rise-and-fall flurry of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Without much variety to the instrumentation or approach, Dreamend's music is still powerful and redolent enough that even as a background for a spoken-word public service announcement about colorectal cancer from Rod Roddy (of "The Price Is Right") it sounds strangely beautiful. Trust me. I have empirical proof.

I dare say that Preface is worth owning for the three Dreamend tracks, which total just over ten minutes – and I'm not unwilling to concede that my frustration with the two from Monster Movie are due solely to my own affinity/demand for a coherent and assertive beat. And whether or not there's anything worthwhile left to say about the shoegazer genre as a whole – drums that aren't there, or song titles that don't appear to exist – I find it difficult to deny that either of these bands has enormous potential.

By Daniel Levin Becker

A rather dark looking album cover that doesn't betray the music inside. Two bands--one I know, the other I don't--competing for my attention. Ideally, both bands usually share not only a record, but also a similarity in sound, style, or vision. But how does the record actually sound?? CD-split releases kind of force the issue of both bands; when bands did split singles or split albums, you could always simply ignore the other band that you didn't know or like. Can't do that quite as easily--thanks, new technology!

Monster Movie is a band consisting of ex-members of the late, great Slowdive, and over the past two years, Monster Movie have made some dreamy post-shoegaze dreampop. Their debut album, Last Night Something Happened, was a lusciously nice record. That's why I was a bit excited to hear these new songs. "Beautiful Artic Star" was a lovely little song, similar to the style of their debut, but I kept thinking that Ian Masters should be singing it. "Nobody Sees" is interesting, but it sounds like an expanded demo, and doesn't really seem to do much. More bothersome, though, is the fact that these songs, as good as they are, seem to find the band teetering along the fine line between dreampop and goth.

So that leaves Dreamend the heavy burden of saving this single. Luckily, this dark horse of a band has enough strength to carry the entire record. Annoyingly, two of their three songs are simply "Untitled," and a third one is simply "..ellipsis.." Well. Be that as it may, Dreamend make a nice, occasionally noisy, always dreamy brand of instrumental music that reminds me of Lanterna meeting up with Tristiza, which means it sounds like Scenic. I really like the loud, epic guitar ambience thing that they're doing, too.

A good band slips up slightly, yet an unknown band picks them up and carries them to safer ground. That's a good thing. This doesn't change my love for Monster Movie, but it does create an interest in Dreamend, which of course means that this record succeeded in its purpose. Preface is a really lovely, dreamy occupation of your time, and promises much for the future--and a pretty interesting kick-off to what appears to be a split-CD series.

--Joseph Kyle

Reviewed Jeanette Samyn