ALBUM REVIEW: Maccogallo and the beautiful, complex, eulogistic "Monuni" will move you

 

"And if you stop your holdin’ on, She still won’t fall, she’s holding on to me..."

If the recently released album "Monuni" by Indianapolis, Indiana's divergently drawn and lowercased maccogallo seeps into you and you find yourself  laying on the couch in the fetal position, don't worry it just means that you are empathetic, that you feel things deeply. That is ultimately a good thing because there are so many people in on this planet who don't feel anything. "Monuni" is the kind of album that you want to listen to from the top down and hopefully without any interruptions. Turn your phone down. The album starts with the title track, a hazy instrumental with room noise and dreamy acoustic guitar strumming while plucky lead lines float in the air. The ambient tones, percussion that feels like nature waking up gets you in a quiet altered state like you are being gently hypnotized. "Parafin" drops in like a thick fog, shoegaze sense, jangle pop tones with chamber pop orchestrations. It very much has a sense of overwhelming questions and imploding emotions hinged on Lily Ullrich's emotionally tethered vox, "Every time I’m alive I don’t remember it / It’s free entrance inside, lost my protectorate / Scrub my skin ‘till its straw, I can’t get rid of it / Rub it in, run along, dip me in paraffin" and when the song starts running aggressively the emotion ramps up, the desperation of youth that we have all felt. 

"Mother Mind" exists in layers. There is the sense that multi-verses of emotions are all existing at once. It is a surreal experience or experiment that feels existential. As heavy guitars flood in, the sensations amplify, the lyrics punch you in the gut, "You crashed your car so I ate dinner alone You said you killed him with your saying no" and in the end it feels like a bad dream or worse reality. At this point in the album as I am steeping in the Robert Smith-esque goth pop guitar lines of "Real Living Pieces" with the darkly drawn but beautiful full throttle emotional falls expressed in the exasperated post punk tones and Lily's layered harmonies, "Now it’s gone to waste, every single time you’ve told me that you / Were wearing your real face..." are tugging hard at me. 

Maybe my favorite track is the shape shifting "Pilltime". The ethereal intro is gorgeous and melancholy, Lily's vocals high and pearl finished, it goes on for nearly a minute and a half and then the song draws on a rumbling drum rhythm and melodic guitar / synth shapes. As Lily seems to tell a story about someone's fall and the inability to save them, "Just give it up, shake all you want I don’t give a fuck / And I can show you what It really means to end up undone / Don’t worry son, In heaven you can see what they could have done" and as the song draws swells with feral drum fills and a fanning explosion of sounds it transcends back into a ethereal circular coda, "And if you stop your holdin’ on, She still won’t fall, she’s holding on to me". "Pilltime" took me on an emotional ride that made me feel cold, like the atmosphere around me dropped. Such a moving piece of sonic art. 

The somber gospel in heaven feeling of "Concrete Boots" with caustic over-modulated synth sounds (that pierce in the void) that minus the chorale of ending "awwwws" as an interludal device is strictly instrumental. Those "aaaawws" push against dissonant places and, in fact, "Carrot Cake", for the most part is a short moody reflection in a carnival mirror. Those two songs feel like a respite from the heaviness, feel surreal and artfully needed. They point is directions that we as listeners can only wonder about, "Intermission, he wanted to fight friction To the city He wanted to fly with me" until the song ends with what feels like a tear in the sky. 

"Honest Man" with the surreal pearliness floating around a tight drum and bass rhythm, "Your courage encrypted by cardamom lies / Your voice it is lifted by tangible ties" within the context of the album might feel like waking up the next day after a tireless week of not sleeping much. The guitar tones that feel, at times, part of the backing vox. There are dashes of what feel like Fender Rhodes keys poking through and a sense of anger in Lilys' vocal aesthetic. "Bobby's Waltz" with the pushing bass lines, clicking drum tones, guitar psychedelia and sort of unsteady on your feet sensation as Lily's vox push through a dreamy haze, is short put dramatic just the same. It has both a sense of post grunge edginess and jazz band if that makes any sense, dipping in surreal ways. It might be an indication that things will get more darkly dreamy even hallucinogenic and it does. 

"Pantheon" falls into a dozen places, sometimes all at once. It is like a convergence of tones, layers of hands pushing you into different directions, an inebriated recollection at a crowded house party, "I must be going, her wind is blowin’ / I’ll take my chances with fleeting dances / There must be something, That you just don’t have / That teaches contempt, And keeps me quiet" and when the ramping up unease and tensions reach a sort of boiling point, expressed in a flurry of sounds crashing in on themselves it feels like tensions somehow released. 

The final track "$6.99" is a somber stunner full of curious, moving poetry and Lily's vocal countenance that is falling and pained. That feeling, sensation, against the beauty of her voice is in and of itself heartbreaking. Maccogallo keeps the production spartan. Acoustic guitar textured, painted by the echoes that stir in the mix with Gothic folk shapes like a vintage Led Zeppelin song (in a way). Lily's lyrics and vocal melodies are transformative, "Now you’re stuck in a halfway house / In the barn that you weren’t born in / And I worry about your mouth / And the chemicals you have sworn in / And you’re sippin’ on somethin’ hot / But only within your body" and, here, is light years ahead of some of her contemporaries like Phoebe. As the song fades something else begins that pushes buttons like a memory, one of happiness, maybe muted happiness but happiness just the same against a sad guitar. 

"Monuni" is a wonderful record that you will surely come back to often once you step into it. It is Maccogallo's sophomore album. I have had the pleasure of being exposed to their music and writing about them on numerous occasions and every single time I am taken aback at the breadth and scope of their work. I don't think that artists who are brilliant fully realize it, maybe because no one tells them so. If you are listening Maccogallo, you are brilliant. I hope you keep doing what you are doing for years to come. 

Press notes indicate that "Monuni" is dedicated to a close friend and so maybe this album is a beautifully complex eulogy. If that is the case it makes it even more impactful, more special. 

Maccogallo is comprised of  Lily Ullrich (Guitar, Vox), Michael Ben Wolfe (Guitar), Isabelle Davis (Guitar, Vox), Jack Gill (Bass), Peyton Ware (Trumpet, Synthesizer), Sean Smith (Drums), Grant Christian (Synthesizer) and Griffin Beckham (Guitar).

-Robb Donker Curtius

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THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://soundcloud.com/maccogallo

https://twitter.com/maccogallo

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6AnbP8gwXNLjFE0DjvyRbe

https://therealmaccogallo.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/maccogallo/

A band that will one day not be a band.

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 Maccogallo, indie rock, folk indie, post punk, alt rock, experimental music, avant rock, art rock, art punk, sophomore album, "Monuni", evocative vocals, deeply drawn orchestrations, chamber pop, Eulogy,