Review: MONO - Mandela Hall, Belfast

For over a decade now, Japanese post-rock quartet MONO’s uniquely cinematic brand of soaring instrumental rock has, despite influencing innumerable acts of their ilk, found very few rivals in terms of both delivery and cathartic power. With their sixth studio album, For My Parents, seeing a revived interest in the band’s altogether beautiful, immersive, wholly instrumental music, tonight a small crowd congregate to discover (or indeed re-discover) why they are still very much masters of the genre.

Closer to home, arguablyBelfast’s finest post-rock act, Kasper Rosa rouse a fortunate few just after 9pm. With drummer James Bruce situated stage right, the band launch straight into the multipart prog of 'First Breath, First Blood', propelled by Steven Butler’s intent-drenched vocals and stellar lead work from guitarist Ryan McCormick. Whilst ‘Chimera’ proves a particularly purposeful peak via its cataclysmic outro surge, the stirring sleep and release of new track ‘The Fires of Great Ships’ secures the heed and appreciation of tonight’s sparse, attentive audience. With a full-length in the works, it would an understatement to say Kasper Rosa are on the brink of something truly fantastic.

Shortly afterwards, strolling out, dressed in black, to a decidedly symphonic instrumental backdrop, MONO ease discreetly into ‘Legend’, the opening track from their latest album, without any hint of announcement or sign of bravado. The band’s now notoriously ineffable brand of grand instrumentalism instantly hits home, Hideki Suematsu and Takaakira Goto’s superb dual guitar work laying the groundwork before the band victoriously erupt into one of the most evocative outros imaginable; descending, chromatic transcendence, full of key changes, that sees the crowd sway, close-eyed, with bassist Tamaki Kunishi.

The next two songs – 'Nostalgia' and 'Dream Odyssey’ – are a chronological continuation of their latest release; the former bursting with the band’s trademark crescendos, stupendously soaring dual-guitar phrases and building, crumbling themes borne from an unseen and implicit grace; the latter seeing Kunishi take to the keys for its restrained, meditative opening. Informed by the magisterial force of longing and memory, each track feels like an inexpressible chapter of a collective inner tale.

Despite two utterly banal heckles from some pointless (assumingly lost and wandering) cretin, tonight’s show feels almost mass-like considering the sheer religiosity of MONO’s music. The Mandela Hall, sized down at each end via drapes for the occasion, is by no means bustling. As such, small pockets of enamoured onlookers soak up the band’s pretence-free, boundlessly ethereal craft tonight, silent and largely static. With Goto unexpectedly exploding from his seat during the climax of ‘Pure As Snow’ to attack his guitar on his knees, bashing it with his bare hands and swaying back and forth like a man possessed, we witness easily the most intense moment of the night thus far.

At the end up, though, with Goto’s impassioned tremolo work on fifteen-minute overture ‘Unseen Harbour’ seeing pockets of the crowd yet more enthralled, bassist Kunishi precedes the band’s most exhilarating song tonight, 'Ashes In The Snow’, via daintily-paced glockenspiel lines before ‘Everlasting Light’ serves as a most masterful resolution, drummer Yasunori Takada’s gallant march beat at its outro ringing firmly and resounding in the ears long afterwards. MONO, exceeding expectations in a manner unreflective of tonight’s disappointing turn-out, have came and conquered Belfast without uttering a single word.



Brian Coney