With their new album Never Forever, France’s premiere extreme doom metal band Monarch take their singular style of punishing ritualistic amplifier worship toward melancholic territory. More ghostly, atmospheric, and haunting than 2014’s Sabbracadaver, this latest also sees more form and shape with their songwriting while still harnessing that plodding, down-tuned, crushing low-end that is their signature backdrop to vocalist Emilie Bresson’s enchanting and spellbinding vocals. With this album’s melancholic tone, Bresson’s vocals are increasingly ethereal and delicate, while still juxtaposing them with her otherworldly harsh shrieks. Since 2002, Monarch have been France’s most recognized and active band in the scene, supported through countless tours all over the world (recently including multiple ones of Japan) and myriad releases on multiple respected labels, alongside such like-minded bands as Corrupted, Noothgrush, Burning Witch, and Khanate.
