Artist Monotonix

Eilon Paz

Website
Monotonix

A barely contained riot disguised as a garage-rock trio, Tel Aviv’s Monotonix has established a ravenous following based on its unequaled appetite for danger. Live shows involve all hairy hell breaking loose: Drums are dismantled and reassembled in the crowd, singer Ami Shalev dives headfirst into trash cans, and the showers of sweat become just another instrument in the band’s anarchic assault. That’s an awful lot of energy to translate to record, but if anyone can capture the band’s chaotic lightning in a bottle, it’s Steve Albini. The legendary recording engineer helmed the sessions for the newly released Not Yet, an LP that strips Monotonix to gutter-troweling riffs, window-rattling beats, and Shalev’s wound-up-and-reeling vocals.

Updated 01/18/2011