Rae Haas once gave a name to the shadowy figure that visited them during sleep paralysis, and that name became a band. It’s an apt origin for ‘ALL MONSTERS’, a debut full-length that treats fear as something to be looked at directly, turned over in the hand, and finally dragged out where everyone can see it. The Brooklyn group has made a big, murky, strangely tender alt-rock record about the things we hide from others and, more painfully, from ourselves.
The band’s makeup explains a lot about its sound. Haas, guitarist and vocalist Jake Harms, and bassist Gabriel Garman first crossed paths in recovery rooms, each chasing separate musical ideas. That shared history gives the album its moral texture. There’s no posturing here, no pose of the misunderstood loner. The band has done the difficult work of sitting in a circle of folding chairs and telling the truth. That vulnerability and exposure doesn’t leave them when the amps get loud.
And they are loud, though not in a blunt way. Harms uses a tuning borrowed from Elliott Smith’s whispery, close-up style and then cranks it to a level that would probably have made Smith wince. Strange as that may sound, it works, because the confession never drowns in the noise. Garman’s bass arrives like a thick, heavy wave, and the rest of the band has the sense to ride it rather than swim against it. Meanwhile Andrew Rapp keeps the longer tracks moving with a pulse that feels natural to them, never forced. Haas, on synth and vocals, supplies the record’s strangest and most unsettled colors. Garman also engineered the record, with Corey Coffman mixing and mastering it. Between them, they kept the sound of a band playing together in a room, something a slicker production would have scrubbed away.
‘ALL MONSTERS’ opens with “Kill The Candle,” a song about drifting and self-sabotage, and it makes the album’s stance clear from the first minute: this band is at home in the half-dark. “Big Hips” follows, shorter and creeping, a downcast study of gender dysphoria that never raises its voice to make its point. The menace lives in the arrangement, soft and steady, so the song never has to spell it out. After that comes “Shape Of An Angel,” which ties addiction and codependency into a knot and leaves it tied. The build is slow and hazy, and Colton Walker’s guest guitar deepens a song that manages to be warm and painful at once.
The middle of the record is where it grows most daring. “All Monsters Go To Heaven” carries two thoughts in the same breath. One is the hope that your worst moments might be forgiven. The other is the bitter truth that plenty of cruel people walk away without paying for any of it. The track creeps in low and murky, then builds to a last chorus that lands like an exorcism. It lets something out, sure, though you’re left unsettled, since the question underneath it all never gets resolved. Right beside it sits “Blue Ridge Mtns,” the album’s most exposed moment. Harms wrote the bones of it as a teenager and shelved it, embarrassed by how naked it felt. Revived here, it follows a car ride toward rehab, with consciousness flickering in and out like a bad signal. It’s a love letter to family and an unsparing look at dependency, and the band backs it with some of the strongest music on the record. There’s something genuinely moving about hearing a person go back to a song they once felt ashamed of and finally let it be what it is.
The second half of the record changes gears but keeps its balance. “Anesthetic” rides a crunchy, ’90s-style roar, yet it’s really a gentle song in loud clothes, aimed at the addict with affection instead of blame. “Return To Sender” goes after a different kind of frustration, the sobering fact that you cannot control how other people see you. The title is almost breezy for something this raw, and the band’s jittery, restless playing suits it. Then there’s “Whispers In The Fog,” seven-plus minutes and the slowest burn of the bunch. Nightmares from childhood, superstitions passed down like heirlooms, a lifetime of dread humming in the background: “Whispers In The Fog” collects all of it and slowly lets it seep away. It demands plenty from you at the end of an album, but it gives every minute back. It’s honest, it won’t tie its pain up in something neater, and not for a second do you doubt that the band believes what it’s saying.
Learn more by visiting the following band links: MX LONELY | Bandcamp | Instagram |
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