I have sincere difficulties describing what Monkey3 does, all I know is that I really fucking like it! They themselves see it as psychedelic stoner rock, and I guess that explain why I can’t describe it, because my mind wanders off when I listen to it. Seriously, I smoked some weed and put 39 Laps in my stereo, I was completely sucked into the couch and unable to move. This record truly is a trip through your mind.

 

The bio is pretty weird I must say. It states that on the first record these Swiss dudes released Monkey3 was a project, now on 39 Laps we hear Monkey3, the band. Okay man, whatever you say. Back to the music then, gigantic soundscapes with drums, guitar, bass and electronic effects lead to something truly amazing. I actually get this Tool feeling from time to time, only drenched in stoner-rock. I can listen to this record three times in a row and smoke like ten joints and still feel the urge to press play again. This will also be the only reason why I would come off the couch as well at such a moment.

 

Another great thing is how they handled the fact that there are no vocals, due to the effects and the bombastic eruptions in the songs you don’t even miss them. The guitars can be as gentle as a whisper, and become thick and heavy as a gorilla during mating season (to name a monkey). Add a brilliant cover of Ennio Morricone’s track ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’ for that legendary movie in which the harmonica is replaced by the guitar, and you have yourself a brilliant album.

 

I did want to say as a minor for 39 Laps that I had the feeling like some intro-parts of some songs sounded alike but I really can’t push that forward. You will only notice this after a couple of listening sessions or when skipping tracks. Did I also mention that they didn’t use a studio to record this but they locked themselves in a cabin in the Swiss mountains together with their sound engineer? No? Then I won't, because this album is incredibly awesome already.