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Music

Mono's Transcendent New Album, 'Requiem for Hell,' Makes Death Sound Beautiful

Stream the gorgeous, Steve Albini-assisted new album from these Japanese post-rock godheads.

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Japanese post-rock godheads Mono have long trafficked in the sprawling, the dense, and the unapologetically beautiful, and the quartet's latest five-song effort for Temporary Residence is no exception. Requiem for Hell sees the band pick back up with old friend and longtime collaborator Steve Albini to bring this particular elegy to life. The underlying themes of the album itself—of life and death, beginning and ends—are reflected in choices like this, to bring an old friend back into the fold, and on the track "Ely's Heartbeat," which is built on the audio of a close friend of the band's baby's actual in utero heartbeat.

Mono possess an eerily intuitive understanding of the dynamic potential between soft and loud, and of the emotional weight that can be conveyed with strings and chimes; they don't need to add vocals to the mix, because the music says everything on its own.

Enjoy our stream of Requiem for Hell below; the album comes out October 14.

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