Rare Monk is a Portland, OR-based indie rock band with a keen sense for writing songs with an Orwellian sense of awareness. While scribing the band’s forthcoming and foretelling sophomore full-length, Never Really Over, the future (i.e. 2020) had not yet arrived. By no means is this album a gloomfest, but at its core is a central thread of ever-present looming dread at the end of the world. Of the bursting of bubbles, of the decline and devolution of America back into the dark ages, of book burnings, witch hunts, of vapors only releasable by exsanguination. Of a surveillance state, of the demonization of science, of persecution at scale, of the normalization of greed, idiocy, cruelty, and death.
Check out Rare Monk’s enchanting and psychedelic new single “Statistic Vandals”(below). A thumping and arpeggiating bass line courses thoughout the track as lead singer Dorian Aites melodically cuts across a substantial bed of electric guitar with poise and a singular voice. Rare Monk displays an acute sense of pop-rock creativity while implementing warm flourishes ala Foals and Arctic Monkeys.
“Statistic Vandal – Data collection, aggregation, and application to ad targeting/warrantless surveillance meets a new foe – a madman who intentionally googles things with no purchase intent whatsoever, who follows, then unfollows without cause, who encourage opsec for the fuck of it. Destroyer of datasets, forcer of manual outlier removal, analysts shake their fists in fury before existing no more,” says the band.
