The Swiss space-rock outfit Monkey3 pleased me a great deal with their instrumental record 39 Laps about three years ago. I unfortunately wasn’t able to see their performance at the Roadburn festival in 2007 due to a massive crowd, luckily they’ve been confirmed for next year again. But before this happens they offer us a cover record entitled Undercover. Let’s find out who their heroes are!

The bands and songs covered on this record are ‘Numb’ by Archive, ‘Watching You’ by Kiss, ‘One Of These Days’ by Pink Floyd, ‘Kashmir’ by Led Zeppelin and ‘Burn’ by Deep Purple. A lot of classic rock as you can see. Monkey3 manages to give all the songs a heavy space-rock sound while paying respect to the original, making it a nice addition to their discography. There is something new now though, and that is the use of vocalists. The band has always been completely instrumental, but this is changed with the addition of two guests on the album. The first is John Garcia (Kyuss, Hermano) who sings ‘Watching You’ and the other is Tony Jelencovich (of bands like M.A.N., Transport League, Icon In Me, C-187 and so on) who sings ‘Kashmir’. Overall they are both good singers, but I have to say I liked it more when they kept everything instrumental and I could drift away in my head to their music. That feeling is disrupted a bit now.

 

Also I would like to ask the band to stop putting their cover version of ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’ by Ennio Morricone on their releases. After checking I found out that this is the third time it appears on a record (once before one a split 10 inch vinyl and on the 39 Laps records), be it a live version this time. That’s overdoing it a bit I’d say. For the rest this is surely a nice release for all fans of space-rock, and even more so for the fans of Monkey3. Check it out and venture into space covers!