I first met Brooklyn trio Old Monk last year. They intrigued me because they have a very aggressive and slightly abrasive take on pop music… They’re not exactly a punk band… but they’re not exactly a pop band either… They’re like if a punk band decided to do a tribute to pop music… three years into honing their craft. When I’d first met them they were in-between albums. Their debut LP, Birds of Belize, had been released in 2012, and they were presently churning out singles, videos, and touring the northeast. Well, their sophomore effort, Posing As Love, is set to drop June 10th on Eenie Meenie and guitarist Josh Carrafa and drummer Ian Burns took a few minutes to catch me up about what they’d been up to. Their latest album maintains their aesthetic, which would have been more than at home on 120 Minutes or Alternative Nation in 1993, but it seems slightly more cohesive as a whole work… and a little more delectable. They tell me that that’s no surprise and that Posing As Love is essentially their first real studio album. “The first album was written before the band ever existed,” Ian clarifies. Josh explains, “The second record was written as this lineup and we realized what we wanted to do a little bit more. The first one was written with many lineups over the course of several years. It was like the greatest hits of a band nobody’s ever heard of… whereas this is a new album from a band no one’s ever heard of [laughs].” They also tell me that they’re happy to be a little more accessible this time around (“We’re proud of the songs and like that there’s a poppy element, which is really cool.”), although the live experience (They have a handful of upcoming dates but, sadly, their Philthy show seems to have been cancelled.) doesn’t exactly reflect that, according to Ian: “The live show is something completely different and much heavier. If Josh shouted, it would almost be a punk show.”
[youtube http://youtu.be/gPskTsouNcI]
