THE MONOCHROME SET – MAISIE WORLD (TAPETE)
In their 40th anniversary year, The Monochrome Set release their fourteenth studio album, comprising 10 songs that continue their traditional sound while adding new flavours that they’ve been experimenting with since their last album, ‘Cosmonaut’.
It opens on ‘Give Me Your Youth’; a bassline track that brings to mind 1989’s ‘I Want Your Skin’. ‘I Feel Fine (Really)’ is the typical Monochrome Set sound, with acoustic guitar simplicity and a comical doctor-patient dialogue, for which the band also made a video.
Also acoustic based is the thick organ-led ‘Cyber Son’, utilising a brass section (a marked difference on this release) and Bid’s strange thematic material, which is further explored in ‘Mrs Robot’.
The album ends on ‘Silence Is Rusty’ and title track ‘Maisieworld’; the former with continued use of female backing vocals and thickly laid on brass which glamourises the track, while the final song is partly played on banjo to suit its country sound.
‘Maisie World’ is available now on CD, vinyl and digitally.
© Ayisha Khan.