This collaboration with fellow Tokyo native and modern electronic composer World's End Girlfriend is a five-part sojourn of neoclassical grace and luminescence that defies lazy categorization. As dark as the bottom of the ocean and nearly as otherworldly, "Palmless" finds Mono inhabiting a magical world previously only hinted at in their most orchestral compositions. Forgoing their tendency to erupt into hellish bursts of speaker-destroying noise, Mono instead exhibits remarkable restraint, stretching song lengths past the 15-minute mark, turning barely-there crescendos into earth-shaking events. This record is a miniature panoramic view of the sea on an eerily still day, the current swaying at an impossibly lazy pace, and the sound of a thousand tiny waves crashing all at once.

Japanese pop from the Human Highway Record label. 2005.

This collaboration with fellow Tokyo native and modern electronic composer World's End Girlfriend is a five-part sojourn of neoclassical grace and luminescence that defies lazy categorization. As dark as the bottom of the ocean and nearly as otherworldly, "Palmless" finds Mono inhabiting a magical world previously only hinted at in their most orchestral compositions. Forgoing their tendency to erupt into hellish bursts of speaker-destroying noise, Mono instead exhibits remarkable restraint, stretching song lengths past the 15-minute mark, turning barely-there crescendos into earth-shaking events. This record is a miniature panoramic view of the sea on an eerily still day, the current swaying at an impossibly lazy pace, and the sound of a thousand tiny waves crashing all at once.

Throughout their six-year career, this Japanese quartet has ascended consistently in both popularity and critical acclaim. But still elusive is the successful translation of their powerful and violently beautiful live performances to their recordings, until now. Once again recorded by Steve Albini, the album extends the cinematic drama of 2003's "Walking Cloud And Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered And The Sun Shined" while surpassing the sinister heaviness of 2002's lauded "One Step More And You Die". If "Walking Cloud" was a nuclear winter, then "You Are There" is the post-war rebirth. This band isn't heavy like Black Sabbath. They're heavy like Beethoven.