EP review: Munroe Effect – You Are Goldmouth

According to Wikipedia, the Munroe Effect “refers to the partial focusing of blast energy caused by a hollow or void cut into a piece of explosive [...] shaping the explosive will concentrate the explosive energy in the void.” The band chose the name by accident, but the You Are Goldmouth EP demonstrates how much of a serendipitous choice it really was.

It opens with “The Escape (Part 1)”, a spare void of plucked guitar, glitchy mangled hi-hats, and muttered vocals that gradually accrue pace and power with the addition of distorted drumming and crescendoing crunch chords before giving way to “Death of a Tin God”. Munroe Effect are redeploying the quiet-loud-quiet dynamics that powered the first wave of grunge, but You Are Goldmouth has a more progressive post-hardcore architecture to it, with subtle and intricate calm moments unfolding into wide-screen heaviness that belies their single-guitarist line-up.

Comparisons with Oceansize (with whom Munroe Effect have toured) are inevitable; that same sense of the haunting urban epic runs through their material, like an exorcism of internal psychodrama that transmits the sincere angst and confusion that emo once promised before it became a fashion movement. “You Are Goldmouth” itself is especially reminiscent of the progressive Mancunians, but it’s more compressed – shorter, more compact, the transitions more sudden and jagged.

“Monsters” sees Munroe Effect step on the gas, with intricate drumming underpinning glassy clean chords and chunky riffs alike, the whole piece moving towards an inevitable implosion that leaves you breathless. But most notable about You Are Goldmouth is the way it portrays the understated character of the band – for all the drama inherent in the slashing guitars and frontman Dan Sutton’s shrieking peaks of fury, there’s a complete absence of self-aggrandisement. Munroe Effect are asubtle yet heavy band that let their music do all the talking, and we need more of those in this era of glossy clichés and rockstar egotism.