Send "Mono " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Prefixmag |
 "Majestic" is a word often used to describe Mono, and this record, the band's fifth, will not challenge us to avoid using it. The huge wash of noisy guitars overshadows on Hymn to the Immortal Wind but never overwhelms the more subtle colors of the tracks, or the addition here and there of flute, tympani and a rather large chamber orchestra. Any of the seven tracks are enough to shred your senses and clear out room for new ones. “Ashes in the Snow” builds to an almost unbearable peak of sonic beauty, while “Burial At Sea” takes on a mythical tale, with towering guitars and orchestra that is at once melancholy and defiant, like the battle it describes. (“Burial at Sea” is a key track, as it incorporates all that is familiar and sweeping about the band but points to new depths of cinematic grandeur. In fact, its finale sounds like a slow death scene from a Peckinpah or Godfather flick.) “Everlasting Light” ends the record with a heavy jam that leaves me spent and sweaty....full text |
| Dustedmagazine |
| There is a distinct charm in the complex simplicity of Japanese band Mono. There’s nothing singular or uniform about these folks. They start with delicate melodies, and then apply layers and layers of guitars and strings, adding glistening coats of aural shellac until there is a thick decoupage of sound. Hymn to the Immortal Wind is Mono’s latest, and it’s their most cinematic effort to date. The M.O. is established on opening track “Ashes In the Snow,” where a repetitive glockenspiel motif peals across a film of white noise, followed by a flamenco-inspired guitar line and an abrupt tsunami of Morricone-meets-Branca bombast. (That “glockenspiel” and “bombast” appear in the same sentence should indicate the extent to which Mono successfully romp on the volume-and-dynamics teeter-totter.) Elsewhere, “Pure As Snow (Trails of the Winter Storm)” features gossamer guitar lines vaguely reminiscent of Loren Mazzacane that spin into a dizzying whorl of saturated feedback, orchestral frenzy and tape manipulation. “Follow the Map” is the unusually brief track on the album, but over the course of a mere four minutes, it manages to careen from hushed piano and slide guitar to a full-blown symphonic eruption. The CD closer, “Everlasting Light,” ends in waves of suitably crushing crescendos....full text |
| Contactmusic |
| The release of 'Hymn To The Immortal Wind' marks the tenth year of 'Mono's existence, a checkpoint in a journey that has seen the band slowly transmogrify from post-rock chancers to the foremost creators of startlingly beautiful, yet devastating modern classical music. Hymn.. is almost certainly the bands strongest full-length to date, and may well be their defining moment, but the album is not without its problems. Actually, make that problem. To give it a name; the presence of producer Steve Albini. Albini has previously worked on Mono's preceding two albums, along with Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Yanqui U.X.O, and has been detrimental to all three, obscuring them with a cloud of dust and soaking out nearly all the emotion within. Here, on Mono's most expansive, most three-dimensional album his presence is more detrimental than ever....full text |
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