Mono

Walking in late, my ears are rattled immediately. Justin Broadrick’s Jesu are midway through their set, and as their atmospheric on-record bombast is translated from studio to stage it grows, bigger and bigger, harder and harder. From the floor looking up, the stacks either side of three men rocking, slowing, on heels in time with sludgy riffs and pounded skins, look like colossal towers reaching up to the heavens; that they spit savage modern metal given an industrial makeover is merely a bonus in the experience, as washes of sonic bliss flow from amplifiers via electrified air to a back wall, against which the fearful are pressed, ears partially covered. When volume’s a recognised weapon in the war on musical mundanity, Broadrick will be marshalling troops left right and centre. I expect his medals are in the post now, then.

Japanese instrumental act Mono are renowned for their emotionally draining live displays – unlike their tourmates here, it’s these outings that last in the memory longer than their recordings (Jesu, though brilliant on record, are notoriously so-so in the flesh, so tonight is a pleasant turn up for the books). But this evening the connections fall short of previous encounters; there’s grandeur and class, skilful execution and compositional nous, but weirdly the four-piece seem rather more distant than usual. ‘Yearning’ is their trump card, still, but it feels oddly devoid of soul tonight, its 15-minute length peaking in all the right places but not engaging all and sundry as it has when aired in smaller surroundings. And perhaps this is the issue tonight: in the comparatively cavernous Scala, Mono’s enveloping sounds are provided with too much space; previously, at shows in the Underworld and at the Water Rats, they’ve stunned onlookers into shell-shocked silence, but here they’re just a pleasant distraction during an evening’s drink or two.

Assessed comparatively, though, Mono remain one of the finest acts of their kind. Problem is that their kind are running out of ideas, fast, and what once gripped the heart like a vice now only half-fills souls well versed in such prefixed rock music.

Photo: Lucy Johnston