MONORAL : “who?!”

First time ever met this band… well, not met but… found out about this band was actually about a year ago. What?!?! Hell yea, I know how late I am for this band.
Well anyway, I was brought to this band by Hyde (The Laruku’s vocalist FYI, just in case you lost him). He mentioned this band and had kissing scenes (YES kissing, I typed it right and they did) with the vocalist many times and I was like… “Who the hell Anis (the vocalist) and this MONORAL are?!”

So I wikied them and read the info about this band.
Soon, I was like “hmm… okay, a model turns to vocalist and an MTV VJ turns to bassist, so typically instant rock band? Silly.”
Well that was what the evil side of Brian told me as I took just a glimpse at it, not fully reading the whole story. And I kept with that shallow info for quite sometimes.

Then one day, I got bored. Surfing here and there and again found out the news about how Hyde adores the vocalist of MONORAL. Kind of curious in disgust, I typed “MONORAL” in the searching box of YouTube that led me to a PV of “Visions in My Head”.
The thought, “oo well, at least if it turns out to be a jest, then it will be brighten up my grayish day a little bit with its silliness,” was there in ‘the Attic’ while the buffering was working to the max.
Few minutes later and it was a fully loaded, I tapped the play button and something hit me right away exactly in the head.
I was completely stunned, “WHAT?! This is MONORAL?!?! NO… WAY!”
The last thing I knew, I spent the rest of the day skipping work and surfing nothing but MONORAL. And that even made my day way much brighter.

This is rather an eclectic modern rock band instead of Japanese Rock Band I must say and probably this band would not steal my attention if it’s not because they inherit Japanese in their blood, thou not fully Japanese but kind of mix of there and here. And yes, this band has absolutely a different sound from any other Japanese Rock Band.
The sounds of semi-Seattle mix up with a bunch of Britpop and lots of uniquely exotic noises and total English lyrics with exactly an English pronunciation rather than what any Japanese-English-will do may false belief you that this band originally from any where but Japan.
Other than the sounds, this band is fortunate enough to have a vocalist with the kind of “Eddie Vedder of Pearl jam’ singing style and raw voice” with a nice middle-east layer in his voice. This kind of what makes the band even more unique [and yes I rate only from the vocalist, because I’ve no idea how exactly is the best bass-playing will sound like, sorry!!]

So then I started to collect the singles then the albums, then I’m officially nailing myself onto them.
I started to learn these two amazing musicians (now I call them ‘musicians’ rather than ‘instant rock stars’) and carefully demolishing the false belief I had about this band that was in the Attic for quite some times.

What can I inform you about MONORAL? Well, I guess you can find it anywhere in this cyber-world. Just Google it and you’ll find lots of sites talking about them in any languages or you can just do the shortcut and wiki them, thou I’m not quite sure how accurate the info in wikipedia, but it’s worth.

For a summary, this band only consists of two musicians (a vocalist and a bassist) who started it all with each other’s band, even one of them had released a solo album when he’s 19 or so, he (the solo artist) too was (or still?) a model in Japan, then both ended-up as MTV VJs and that was how they met, and soon after, MONORAL was born. Thank God they decided to form a band together.
Did I miss something? Hell, I told you to Google them for a much concrete info right?

Anyway, as I told you before, I’m officially nailing myself onto this band. Indeed. I guess I’ve been addicted to this band and I keep putting their albums in my player and they’re been there for a long period, and I haven’t got bored of them…yet. Even my fangirling mode keeps flashing brightly every time I hit the news or rumors or even just pictures of them. Silly me… I know.

I guess I have to thank my boredom and my skipping work that led me to this band. Well if it wasn’t because of it, I probably wouldn’t dare to cross the line and surf-in MONORALish and this stupid belief about ‘how silly MONORAL is’ would stay for a lot longer period of time and I wouldn’t get any chance to know those two adorable musicians (now I know why Hyde adores this band).

Hmm… that means, never judge a book by its cover?
Or simply say, “Listen carefully first then you may speak your mind out loud.”
That works for me, any time. And I should stick with it and keep learning the line so that I won’t be crashed and tangled in a stupid prejudice behavior.

So, dare to MONORALish yourself?
I bet you’ll fall in love with this one. And even if you don’t like Japanese Songs (because you’ve no idea what they’re talking about or hate the way they sing the songs) you have nothing to worry about because MONORAL will make you think they’re not coming from any place in Japan.
Moreover if you like the sounds of modern rock or Britpop, then MONORAL will save your day.
Give them a try. Give yourself a chance to get to know more about these two amazing musicians. At least your collections will be much more diverse than your usual right?

I’m signing off now with couple of pictures about MONORAL, enjoy.
Cheers!

credits to the photos:
sorry but i kinda forgot where i stole those pics from, but the last one (the yellowish pic) i stole from their website. the rest? from here and there, and if you the original owner would like me to erase them from my blog, then happily contact me and i'll erase them all.
cheers again.


related posts about MONORAL :

reviewing MONORAL
Session 9: when romantic doesn't have to be poetic
Listening MONORAL: enjoy riding rollercoaster of emotions
videos of MONORAL on YouTube
Side note: Being confused in Japanengrish



_______________________________________
Bestfriending with the ears: MONORAL – So Long!