By Nick Marini, social media manager
Your high school parking lot, the bar that accepted fake IDs, the basement of your friend’s house whose mom knew not to come down on Friday nights…the familiar places where the music of your teen years took shape and precisely cemented themselves in your memory. For many rock listeners of our generation, the likes of Blink-182, Green Day, Foo Fighters and The Strokes welcomed us through the gates of musical fandom. They had high energy, youthful souls and reckless enthusiasm that was simple, easily relatable and, more importantly, loud. As our primordial drinking years evolved, our tastes expanded but the spirit mostly remained.
Monterey’s most recent release, the 4-song EP “The King’s Head,” taps into the familiarity of that endearing spirit found in small, dark rooms with thirsty friends, our wallets as empty as our worries. With an eager lack of inhibition they pound on anthemic chords and show no mercy to those poor cymbals. They quickly draw near to the sounds and mentality of Kings of Leon and The Hold Steady – simplicity in heaviness, basic in their relatability, with an arena-rock feel that’s actually best suited in a small venue. While they aren’t quite as drunk as those two bands, their punk-rock type of lyrical delivery pulls in a teen-freedom type of attitude. Again like THS and KoL, don’t look at simplicity here as a fault – this is the type of music that puts hands in the air.
“All it takes is life to find out.”. It’s straightforward, perhaps cushy, but it’s good advice for the young at heart, before the jaded intellect of college-aged cynicism can infect the nostalgia of previous years. “Bet you wanna come back down,” they holler up to that existential snob on their soapbox.
Unlike a return to that old bar that accepted fakes back in the day, the return to the spirit here isn’t diminishing. There’s heavy rock to be revisited in their style, and the sound is more complex than what you’re used to in this vein. With combined influences, Monterey offers a visceral listen that encourages you to get caught up in the energy as the crescendos roll and the choruses thunder without relent in a whirl of muscled pop-rock sound. When the brief storm is over, you’re soaked and left wanting more.
“I got a job, but it doesn’t pay. I got a time, but it ain’t today.” The chagrin of a songwriter unsatisfied with their situation is washed away with a young singalong energy. Much like the attitude of their music, Monterey should have the confidence to let that energy take them to new heights. If you want loud intelligible riffs that keep you entertained in that becoming-classic strain of anthemic pop-punk rock, “The King’s Head” is a quick listen giving you a new take on the places where nostalgia swelled and a time when big things were still in front of you. Lovers leave, and trysts may be ephemeral, but you can take your verve wherever you go. Or let it take you anywhere.
Photo courtesy Petras Gagilas, Creative Commons.
