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When I last checked in with Los Angeles’ Behold! The Monolith, they were still finding their sea legs with their new lineup, slowly assembled after the tragic passing of bassist and vocalist Kevin McDade.

I had the pleasure of seeing the band in this present incarnation several times over the last year. I got to see singer Jordan Nalley grow more and more comfortable fronting an outfit as idiosyncratic as Behold. At the same time guitarist Matt Price became an even madder scientist with his live effects. By the time they played their final show before heading into the Joshua Tree desert to record their third album, they were a tight and deadly unit ready to wreck the nearest stage.

Just as Price planned last year, Billy Anderson returned to man the board for Architects of the Void and he’s somehow achieved one of his most cohesive productions yet. In “The Mithriditist,” Nalley’s just-loud-enough vocals, Price’s blackened tremolo torrents and drummer Chase Manhattan’s towering cymbal crashes stew into a sonic maelstrom; it’s the soundtrack to being trapped in the eye of a desert storm. Price duels with Jason Casanova’s bass during the doomed out bridge, just before Nalley takes over with a full suite of julienned howls. This is the weirdest Behold! The Monolith have ever been and more than ever, a single genre-descriptor fails to do them justice. I wouldn’t have wanted anything less.

—Avinash Mittur

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Architects of the Void drops September 29. Pre-order it from the band here, and follow them on Facebook here or on Instagram at @beholdthemonolith.

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