Monolithic Cloud Parade
Columbus, Ohio, United States | SELF
Music
Press
By Joel Oliphint
In the summer of 2006, before Corey Fry could even play an instrument, he had a band name: Monolithic Cloud Parade. After christening his nonexistent band, he learned how to play guitar, started recording an album at home and eventually formed a real-live band, which began playing shows this past March.
And now we have the album, Children With Wolf Heads, which, as Fry says, “tells the story of a pack of turn-of-the-century carnival freak show children with wolf heads who escape their wagon train in a deadly accident one night and head off into the forest to fend for themselves.”
Enough background. Let’s get this out of the way: Neutral Milk Hotel. Monolithic Cloud Parade is forever indebted to the former group and its founder, Jeff Mangum. If you’ve ever listened to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, it’s probably the first thing you’ll think of when you hear Children With Wolf Heads. But I love Neutral Milk, so this is right down my alley.
And, of course, there’s more to it than that. For someone who couldn’t play an instrument, Fry learned a whole lot of them, and he learned how to play them well: guitars, drums, drum machines, keys/synth and more.
The trumpet on “Airplanes Full of Flames”—the only track that features the full band in its current form—is a terrific addition, too. It’s a lo-fi affair, so there’s some off-tempo, out-of-sync spots, but it’s more endearing than it is distracting.
And that bizarre story? It’s a surprisingly good thematic device for meditations on death, fear and pariahs. Yet Fry doesn’t dwell on anything too long. “We lived, the others died/Where is the other side?” Fry sings on the epic “Do Ghosts Dream of Death?” Then he answers the question by changing the subject: “You and me, we must be on our way.”
There’s some ominous stuff in here, especially the instrumentals, but it’s peppered with some sprightly numbers so as not to be overbearing. The subject matter and Fry’s fuzzy caterwauls may be off-putting at first, but after a few listens, don’t be surprised if you find yourself singing “Don’t venture by the river past the shadows tonight!” - The Other Paper (Columbus)
Discography
LP- "Children With Wolf Heads" released August 2009.
LP- "The Sea and Setting Sun" released September 2010
Songs have been on local radio station WWCD 101.1 and local college radio.
Photos
Bio
In the summer of 2006, while driving to California and writing down long strands of random words in order to make a viable band name, Corey Fry decided to see if he could learn to play an instrument. Later that fall he walked into a music store, feeling like a trespasser, picked up the first acoustic guitar he saw, and went home. For two years he fiddled and wrote and recorded with the guitar and a keyboard he found in his mom's garage along with a broken child's drum set he found at a thrift store. Eventually realizing that he had upwards of a hundred songs deemed listenable by the three people who listened to them, he decided to look for a band. One craigslist ad and a few weeks later, Monolithic Cloud Parade was reborn as a full fledged five piece collective. The newly formed band decided upon 20 or so songs to learn and began practicing throughout the winter. That February, they played their first show at a friend's birthday party in a former hip-hop club in Cleveland (hip-hop nights ended after a club murder a few months prior).
The band really hit the pavement starting in March and was suddenly being invited to play multiple shows a week. Every show somebody new would approach with a new "you sound like..." band, including the Elephant 6 crew, Modest Mouse, The Decemberists, Neutral Milk Hotel, Sunset Rubdown, My Morning Jacket, Weezer, and Pink Floyd. The band began scratching it's collective head at some of these comparisons, but took them all as compliments.
In August of 2009, they released an LP titled "Children With Wolf Heads," a re-imagining of the earliest songs written by Corey, who was in the process of finishing the recording when the band came together. It's a concept story album revolving around a pack of turn-of-the-century wolf-headed children who escape from a carnival train one night and head off into the wilderness.
In September of 2010, the first full band album, "The Sea and Setting Sun," will be released. Displaying a wide range of musical influences and styles, but collectively cohesive, these are the songs heard live throughout the past year that have drawn comparisons to Sunset Rubdown, Neutral Milk Hotel, Modest Mouse, My Morning Jacket, The Decemberists, and more.
With a strong focus on playing melodic and engaging art-pop, Monolithic Cloud Parade are focused on regional and national touring in support of "The Sea and Setting Sun."
Links
