REVIEW: Squid – O Monolith

According to the band, O Monolith started to grow roots during a seated, socially distanced tour in 2021. With their usual, raucous, moshing crowd instead taking in their shows from wooden chairs and drinking pints in quiet moderation, you can imagine that the band were able to gain a different perspective on how people were responding to their songs. We’ve all seen the pits gets wild at these kinds of shows, people jumping all over the place, even the quieter songs getting taken over by that one bloke who can’t resist taking his shirt off and crowdsurfing. But for Squid, it must have been refreshing to see that, in the quieter, more contemplative moments of their music – many fans would be closing their eyes and getting lost in the glow. While they experimented with new sounds during that tour, they have taken them on wholeheartedly on their second album.

The raw Squid ingredients still exist. Drummer and vocalist Ollie Judge is still the vocal point, his yelpy voice still yelping in all the right places. Their guitars still burst out in barrages, their songs still build and change, they still mix post-punk and art rock influences in equal measure. But the songs on this LP are not as chaotic, the sound of the album is more thought through as a whole – there is more of a sense in the way the album is ordered. And when we get to ‘Siphon Song’ we can see that the band have taken the lessons of that socially distanced tour and come away thinking that they don’t have to take the audience on a journey with every single song, but can instead use a track to build an atmosphere that furthers the album experience as a whole.

Opening songs ‘Swing (In A Dream)’ and ‘Devil’s Den’ are great, but it is the run that begins with ‘Siphon Song’ and ends with penultimate track ‘Green Light’ that really highlights what I am saying here and takes the album onto a new level. ‘Siphon Song’ melds into the crunchy, spoken word verses of ‘Undergrowth’ (the best song here, and further evidence of the band’s Radiohead influence). The chimes which end ‘Undergrowth’ then give way to the skittery, electronic intro to ‘The Blades’, which quickly becomes the most Bright Green Field like track on offer – with the album’s most addictive chorus. And then ‘After The Flash’ offers another side to the band, another moment that would work so well in those sit down gig, as a slow build and additional layers lead us peacefully into the beautiful chaos of ‘Green Light.’

The album then finishes with the brilliantly named ‘If You Had Seen The Bull’s Swimming Attempts You Would Have Stayed Away’, which is another quality song. Many would include it in the run I have just highlighted above. But it feels to me like Squid have cleverly demarcated this album into three sections, creating a listener journey that simply didn’t exist on their amazing debut. Packed with engaging, enjoyable songs, but also revelling in the album experience it offers – O Monolith continues to place Squid as the outliers in the genre they loosely exist within. While bands like Fontaines DC move from a punky sound to something more anthemic, or Yard Act release a set of political pop songs with a comedic bent, Squid continue to try new things and defy easy classification. And they do it really well, too. Long may it continue.

Words by Fran Slater