The Monochrome Set – Lotus Bridge (Tapete Records) (13th Floor Album Review)

The Monochrome Set, somewhat memorable for two albums and two singles from their late 70s, early 80’s period, as they trail blazed UK post-punk. The single The Jet Set Junta from their third album Eligible Bachelors was a hipster (before they were called hipsters) badge of honour. Through almost 50 years of break-ups and reformations, over a multitude of releases, only frontman Ganesh “Bid” Seshadri  remains, though Andy Warren can claim membership since the early 80s.

Lead single Lotus Bridge, is a true and fastidious post-punk anthem, easily proclaiming the band’s influences on acts like The Smiths, Mick Harvey and Franz Ferdinhand, as it paces in a indie dancefloor banger. Meanwhile Jenny Greenlocks is a sweet ballad-like narrative, a song of requited and unrequited love. Whilst the second single Athanatol is rollicking mass of electric guitar and keyboards, all the while Bid croons his way in and out in a most flirtatious manner.

On their 17th album, Bid, Warren and fellow band members have managed to (re)capture the essence of their post-punk roots, in a jangly, punky, crooner manner. Always a little irreverent, Athen Ayren’s keyboard skill takes one back to a cocktail bar in the 1950s, as Tony Bennett or perhaps Serge Gainsbourg sings to an electric Ennio Morricone soundtrack. But then again as the band narrates a world declining into chaos, of strongmen using nostalgia to blather the masses, The Monochrome Set still retain the punk part of post-punk.

Simon Coffey

Lotus Bridge is out March 13th via Tapete Records