It’s been six years since I Monster (Dean Honer and Jarrod Gosling) dropped an album, and it’s given this release an almost Avalanches-style level of anticipation. Much like the Australian mixmasters (whose last album came in 2001), I Monster features an erratic, complicated, but above all else, highly sophisticated sound that – on A Dense Swarm of Ancient Stars – turns out being worth the wait.
Mixing throwback chamber-pop with ultra-modern rock and a whole slew of electronics and vocals, the duo creates an intricately original album that takes multiple listens to grasp. There’s a mixture of fun ("Goodbye Sun"), cool seriousness ("Cool Coconuts"), and cheeky inventiveness ("She’s Giving Me The I") throughout A Dense Swarm of Ancient Stars that gives the album a warm, yet at times, eye-popping appeal. The range of sound between songs like the dense, electronic "Escape From New Yorkshire" to the tender "Sickly Suite Part 1 How Are You?" is nothing short of astonishing.
Despite taking an extended period of time to come to life, A Dense Swarm of Ancient Stars is an uncommonly creative collection of songs that shows of I Monster’s extraordinary production and song-writing skills. It’s old school, new school, and future school all melted together in a wonderful combination. Hopefully it won’t be this long until their next release.
