Monkey

While other hardcore bands wallow behind lo-fi aesthetics, dress up in thrasher costumes, or vibe on the mysterious guy/youth attack sound, Monkey go the other direction and rip hardcore from its safe and familiar moorings. They tear it apart, spitting up broken shards of Converge and Daughters riffs, rough-hued and strung together over rolling blastbeats and punctuated by throat-ripping screams. [Monkey] cut the shit and go straight for the jugular. - Sled Island 2010 Guide

Monkey combines hyper technical math metal with roaring vocals, resulting in tunes that meld the jarring indecipherability of Daughters with the throaty howl of Brent Hinds. Without a single gimmick in sight, the trio expels hardcore and shreds mightily on stage during their vigorous performances. - Decibel Magazine Online

Sludge trio Monkey opened the evening, and their polyrhythmic blend of jazzy, thunderous drumming, meaty resonating bass, down-tuned reverberating riffs and throaty howling vocals were the evening’s highlight. Their lengthy set, which they joked would end continuously, featured energetic fits of musicianship that were generously received by the crowd. - Beatroute, February 2011

"I guess we picked the name because a monkey can be fun and silly, but it could also get vicious and rip your face off."

So explains Alex Kurth, singer and guitarist for Monkey, a trio made up by members of various Calgary indie music foundations. All three have forged strong identities within the scene, but together they make some of the most brutal hardcore metal you may hear.

Bassist Henry Hsieh is best known for his stint with Beija Flor, which hardly accounts for what he's doing playing in a metal band. His love for this particular genre of music, however, creates a perfect excuse - one the other two can share and nod in agreement with.

"I have sort of a limited grasp of metal," Hsieh admits, "but the stuff that I do listen to, I love it. And when I'm up there (with Monkey), it's just fun to play because it's so different from what I do normally."

The word "fun" is rarely heard within the context of metal, but this is the charm of Monkey: they exude a boyish exuberance, both through their onstage appearance - before a single note is played, one could swear that this is another indie-rock band - and towards the music itself. Despite his proclivity to scream like a wild-man through each song, Kurth (who also plays bass in the math-metal outfit Lint) insists it's taken with a grain of salt.

"It's just fun (to scream)," he says. "That's really where it comes from. We all have that in us. There's a measure of insecurity you create that makes you feel the need to play heavy music, and I guess there's a certain element to that for me."

"But you're a really personable guy," drummer Mike Wallace chips in, "so it doesn't really come across like you have this dark, damaged soul."

Indeed he doesn't. In fact, all three are extremely outgoing and are almost always smiling, which is what makes Monkey all the more interesting. Even when Wallace jokes that he can picture Kurth, the main songwriter, "sitting in a corner under a dripping pipe in a basement somewhere, writing all these dark metal riffs," the band laughs at how absurd the idea is.

Wallace spends the majority of his time playing drums with Women, one of Calgary's most successful groups, whose intense touring schedule has slightly hindered Monkey's evolution. "I definitely want to go all the way (the band hopes to cut an album soon), but I'll wait for this guy as long as it takes," says Kurth as he motions towards Wallace, by far the busiest of the three. This speaks to the trio's devotion to each other - remarkable considering how constrained they all are by time and commitments to their other bands.

Wallace sums it up best - their multitasking musical nature, the members' individual impacts on the Calgary scene, and the way their easy-going approach to the metal they play can be picked up on by their audiences:

"A mutual friend of ours came to one of our shows, and he said that we were so loud and fast and crazy, he couldn't help but laugh, because we all had the biggest smiles on our faces. He was just picturing us all in our other bands and couldn't believe it."

--Sean-Paul Boynton - Beatroute, September 2009