Thirteen years of riffs: Monolord drop *Neverending*

Thirteen years in, Monolord are still doing the thing that most heavy bands can't sustain: playing slow with conviction. Neverending, released yesterday through Relapse Records, is their ninth full-length and their most considered album to date — made with a producer who has never worked in doom before, built around lyrics more personal than anything they've written, and bookended by a closing track where guitarist Thomas Jäger doesn't sing at all. 1

Monolord formed in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2013 around three people: Thomas Jäger (guitars, vocals), Mika Häkki (bass), and Esben Willems (drums). They've kept that lineup intact ever since, and the consistency shows — their discography is one of the more coherent bodies of work in contemporary doom. 1

The catalog starts with Empress Rising (2014) and Vænir (2015), both of which established the template: down-tuned guitars, Jäger's melodic baritone, drums that hit like falling masonry, bass so low it registers in the chest. RUST (2017) and No Comfort (2019) refined the formula. Your Time to Shine (2021) brought a slightly cleaner production. It's All the Same (2023) was their most recent full album before Neverending. Across all of it, the core sound has barely shifted — what's changed is the precision with which they apply it.

The production choice is the first signal. Monolord brought in Sylvia Massy, who built her name working with Tool, System of a Down, and Johnny Cash. She is not a doom producer — that's the point. The result is an album that sounds heavier in part because it's been recorded to be sharper: the riffs have more definition, the songs feel more built for a specific listen than for general atmosphere. 1

Bassist Mika Häkki described the sessions this way: "The recording of this album is an example of the spirit of MONOLORD's camaraderie. We've looked back and seen for the first time how much we have done as a band collectively, and realized what an intense 13 years it has been." 1

Jäger's lyrics have also shifted. His earlier work leaned on religious skepticism and collective mythology. On Neverending, the subject is closer to home. "The lyrics on this album are more personal than before because I went through some major life changes in the last couple of years," he said. "This record is more about relationships between people." 1

The lead single "You Bastard" deals directly with suicide — not as metaphor but as lived situation, told from two sides. "There's the person who commits suicide and the people who get left behind," Jäger explained. "The choruses represent the person left behind, and that person is calling the other a bastard — but it's not pointing fingers... It's more like, 'You left me here with all the bullshit.' It's an understanding that life is not easy." The song opens the album at four minutes and nineteen seconds, quick by Monolord standards, and hits harder for it.

Neverending runs eight songs across what the band describes as a flowing whole. Bandcamp supporter Dolf put it plainly: "Love the way the songs flow into each other — feels like one continuous groove jam." 1 The track listing:

The eight-minute opener and closer bracket the record; "Inside a Collider" and "Oozing Wound" provide the heavy middle mass. "Iodine" was, improbably, inspired by 1970s rock epics — Jäger cited "Free Bird," "Hotel California," and "No Quarter" as reference points. 1

The closing track carries the record's single most unusual moment. "It's Neverending" is the first Monolord song where Jäger does not sing. The death-metal vocals are performed by Jörgen Sandström — former Entombed bassist, also known from Grave, Domedagen, and Firespawn — whose delivery makes the final eight and a half minutes feel like a different room at the end of a long corridor. 1

Drummer Esben Willems: "I've spent a quarter of my life in this band. Looking back, I'm incredibly proud of what we've accomplished along the way, and in many ways, this album feels like the essence of everything we've done so far." 1

Bandcamp (streaming + download): Neverending | Monolord

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