Editor’s Note: Our Album Of The Week column is running one day late this week. Sorry!<\/p>\n
When it comes to Frankenstein, you can probably sort the majority of the literate, English-speaking population into two major categories: Those who\u2019ve spoken something along the lines of \u201cFrankenstein is the doctor\u2019s name, actually\u201d and those who have received that correction. One might think that in the two centuries of English classes, Halloween costumes, and screen adaptations since Mary Shelley first published her groundbreaking gothic horror novel, we might have a little more consensus about who is \u2014 or, rather, are \u2014 considered the story\u2019s true monster. But I like to think that Shelley would\u2019ve delighted in the ambiguity between what comprises a human and a monster. I think Mx Lonely probably get a kick out that, too.<\/p>\n
Vocalist Rae Haas got the idea to name their band Mx Lonely because that\u2019s the nickname they gave the shadowy figure that would appear during their bouts of sleep paralysis. The Brooklyn band\u2019s debut full-length All Monsters arrives this Friday, and it\u2019s a comprehensive introduction: The album\u2019s eight songs signal the band\u2019s reverence of \u201880s indie rock, contemporary noise rock, and all the pedal-loving guitar bands they bonded over when they first met in Alcoholics Anonymous just ahead of the pandemic.<\/p>\n
With a lot of its lyrics rooted in the Jugnian practice of shadow work \u2014 achieving self-acceptance by prodding at the more shameful, suppressed facets of our personalities \u2014 All Monsters, like Shelley, argues that monsters are more often found in subtle, everyday encounters. Oftentimes addiction, whether to substances or bad habits, has a hand in creating the monstrosities Haas sings about, and All Monsters roots them in lived experiences. The steady build-up of \u201cBlue Ridge Mtns,\u201d for instance, finds Haas \u201cfreaking out in the back seat\u201d on the way to a rehab facility, while the n\u00fc-metal chug of \u201cWhispers In The Fog\u201d posits anxiety as a crutch that can be galvanizing one moment and debilitating the next.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, on the stellar early single \u201cShape Of An Angel<\/a>,\u201d Haas reckons with juggling co-morbid dependencies. \u201cI\u2019m in love with Adderall and validation,\u201d they belt over stylistically muddled guitars. A sense of isolated helplessness looms when they allude to the Virgin Mary, who appears not as a saint but as a flaky acquaintance who asks to bum a cigarette immediately before leaving the kickback. And speaking of saints, All Monsters also grapples with the notion that the binary fates often promised to us tend to flatten the human experience: \u201cAll monsters go to heaven, and all the bad shit you did here was fine,\u201d Haas proclaims with almost a Courtney Love-style snarl on \u201cAll Monsters Go To Heaven.\u201d It\u2019s a comforting notion, until it sinks in that the same rule would apply to the most truly heinous of us.<\/p>\n All Monsters doesn\u2019t excuse the depraved and the immoral, but it does argue in favor of treating our own depravities and immoralities with compassion if we ever want to purge them. On the sludgy, sultry \u201cBig Hips<\/a>,\u201d Haas invokes puberty growing pains from their transgender perspective, employing some subtle dick jokes in the process: \u201cI know you want to explain to me\/ How you know I got\/ Big hips for a boy.\u201d The sing-along hooks of \u201cReturn To Sender<\/a>\u201d offer a refreshing, cathartic take on one-sided obsession, written by Haas from the perspective of someone who was simply indifferent towards them.\u00a0<\/p>\n