Belgian Noise-Rock and Stoner-Grind band 30,000 Monkies will drop their new album, Honesty Integrity Friendship Passion via the Consouling Sounds label, tomorrow, September 30th, 2022. The band has a cult following and will find favor from fans of Melvins, SUMAC, and Weedeater among others! Stream the full new album here at Ghost Cult!
Tracklist:
- Honesty
- Integrity
- Friendship
- Passion
Guitarist/vocalist, Ruben Savelkoul explains the value of the words saying: “This sequence of words has been living in our minds since then. We kept thinking about doing something with it and finally decided to write the music to fit these words. In the end we wrote a song for each individual word, sonically and thematically inspired by it”.
Belgian experimental metal band, 30,000 Monkies have consistently been unleashing cathartic noise avalanches in live venues across Europe. Consouling Sounds is happy to announce the upcoming LP from Beringen-based collective – Honesty Integrity Friendship Passion. Commenting on the nature or writing and concepts, Michiel De Naegel admits: “It might seem like a pre-planned concept album, but it really isn’t. The title comes from Lil B’s lecture that took place in New York city in 2012” – while the rap-artist was referring to a positivistic idea, talking about kindness, Lil B had summed up the concept with four words only: honesty, integrity, friendship and passion.
Both members stress – despite the emotional quality of Lil B’s worldview, the songs are not necessarily representations of it. On HONESTY INTEGRITY FRIENDSHIP PASSION, 30,000 Monkies celebrate some core human values the only way they know how: with a banquet of festive sludge metal,droning guitars and an ambient palate cleanser.
“We started out with the idea of one long song in four chapters, fitting the vibes for the title we already had in mind” – stresses Ruben. The intention to write really diverse and contrasting songs, fitting each title evolved. The situation that became both comfortable and productive for the band led to what they describe as “a DIY approach”. 30,000 Monkies “ourselves” used to control the process entirely. Except for the mastering work. “By “ourselves” I mean Ruben (singer, guitarist) recorded and mixed it in his own ‘FVN KVLT’ Studio, which was sadly demolished right after we finished the recordings.” – the freedom the band got in this situation allowed them to work on the arrangements and songwriting all along the way of making HONESTY INTEGRITY FRIENDSHIP PASSION.
Four songs with a mind of their own, boldly moving in different directions while still clearly being part of the ever expanding 30,000 Monkies universe. It’s brutally honest, joyously anthemic, grandly spacious, and above all: a well-meant punch in the feels. It’s an ode to a Lil’ B with warm ideas.
“We never really have a ‘fixed’ approach.” – describes Michiel. What started with the intention to create contrasting songs, fitting with each title led to various changes on the arrangements and approaches. Experimenting with sounds 30,000 Monkies created “Integrity”. “While all the twists and turns of ‘Honesty’ were meticulously planned before recording – ‘Passion’ is a solo- endeavor by Ruben, relying heavily on slowly droning, overdubbed guitars, synths and autotune vocals. ‘Friendship’ was (fittingly) the most collaborative songwriting effort we ever did as a band, trying to get the dynamics right in a live setting before we started recording.”
For the past years, 30,000 Monkies have been stalwarts of the Belgian noise rock scene. ‘Somewhere Over The Painbow’ to ‘Are Forever’, is stuffed with pounds of suave sludge and riffs that sound like a zillion champagne corks popping all at once. HONESTY INTEGRITY FRIENDSHIP PASSION continues the tradition of making every next release better and better. Loud and luxurious, sticking out like a stockbroker in corpse paint, it became the newest mark in the history of 30,000 Monkies ( who send you their greetings from a top the twisted metallic throne of Rock ).