despite citing Braid and American Football as their influences, Monument are definitely a band with their own sound. a lot of bands citing American Football as a main influence sound pretty much… exactly like American Football, with some minor twists. and those bands are generally great, don’t get me wrong! but I must admit being pleasantly surprised with Monuments more jangly and distorted emo rock that feels almost as home with Pavement – or, to take a totally different band that they also sound like, Built to Spill – as it does with late ’90s and early ’00s emo. they are at times loud like Pavement, hitting you with a wall of guitars – but other times they play sensible and twinkly guitar-based rock like Built to Spill, or even Yo La Tengo. there are some noisy ambient-like tracks and an acoustic guitar track to make sure it gets diverse enough for everyone. the acoustic song is actually the closest Monument ever get to American Football in their exploration of different sounds. anyway, this is an interesting journey by a band that might not yet have found it’s sound, but experiment with lots of different sounds, all of which are interesting in their own way. give it a go.