Every once in a while, a great band you’ve never heard of crosses your path, or a great album from a previously lackluster band grabs you by the balls and gets your attention. Sadly this is neither of those.
Mongo Life isn’t necessarily a bad album, but it suffers from poor production. There are a few spots where the mix really suffers. Also, most of the songs sound enough alike, in both tonal quality and arrangement that if you aren’t paying attention you can’t really tell where one song ends and the next begins. It just feels like too much of a not-so-good thing. Of course, I’m not a huge fan of “Cookie Monster” vocals anyway, so maybe that’s not helping.
I tried to find one standout song that I could get behind, and I had nearly given up hope, until I heard the title track. “Mongo Life” is a well done, although simple, acoustic arrangement that is the bright spot on this album; too bad it’s at the end.
This one gets 2 out of 5 skulls.
If you really want to get a feel for The Mongoloids at their prime, check out 2009’s Assorted Music EP. As the name suggests, there is a richer, more diverse offering of songs and some real standouts like “Situated Chaos” and “Withdrawn (Revisited).”
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