It’s not often that a newer band is able to come around and after any amount of time become a name that’s damn near synonymous with everything that the modern shape of the style is in peak form with no compromisation or failure to deliver no matter the occasion. Monolord has quickly become such a name for the world of doom since their debut album just seven years ago, and it would be putting it lightly to say their rise has been meteoric. Every album that they’ve released has had more than enough to fawn over for years to come, and it should be obvious to anyone familiar with the name that it’s with their fifth opus that they’ve done nothing but succeed yet again.

Right out of the gate, it needs to be understood before any Monolord creation that we’re all but guaranteed to be getting some combination of riffs, ethereal heaviness, and an intoxicating mentality that permeates every facet of each song as Monolord has not only been doing it from the beginning but they showed very quickly that they were masters at bringing it all together beautifully. After doing it for years now, it’s the exact conditions to make the very glory of the band’s sound so much more dynamic at virtually every turn which makes any given moment of “Your Time To Shine” one of the standout moments of doom in 2021 that many of us are constantly craving for. There’s always the temptation to call the most recent of any work from this band their best yet since it really does feel like they age like fine wine only to get better with time, and I cannot stress enough how strong that temptation is here with these five tracks not just being everything that we could ever ask for out of the likes of Monolord, but it truly does feel like Monolord has tapped into a whole new level of their expertise to make a work that is effortlessly one of the many peaks that doom has achieved this year. The energy is downright invigorating with the riffs and mastery that Monolord has harnessed up to this point making “Your Time To Shine” a truly bewildering performance that’s virtually effortless to fall into with everything brought to the table everything that the doctor could have ordered for such a creation from such a renowned band, and even though it checks off all the boxes needed for glory in exemplary fashion almost right out of the gate, it’d be a lie to say that Monolord does not impress yet again.

It can almost feel like an outright cliche to look at a new Monolord effort and dub it as one of the best pieces of doom every time that there’s a new one for us to sink our teeth into, but there’s very good reason for why that’s the case of the matter with the masters never once let us down. “Your Time To Shine” is far from different as it is yet again Monolord’s very own time with more attention on them than ever and the potential for them to be carved into the doom halls of time are not just expected but not guaranteed given everything we’re presented with here.

LISTEN to “Your Time To Shine” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Monolord on Facebook here.