Admittedly, there was ‘We've Caught the Sun’, a reworking of ‘Catch the Sun’, and admittedly there was Covid, and admittedly the band underwent some line-up changes... but the fact remains that it took seven years, seven years of reflection, for Monolyth to release new material after ‘A Bitter End / A Brave New World’. A year before celebrating its twentieth anniversary, the band has never given up and has continued to prove its perseverance. On this occasion, we met Julien Dijoux for a long interview in which the band's founding guitarist talks about the colourful band's journey along which he sowed the seeds of success for this new album, "Seeds of Perseverance"...
Perseverance is the key word for the album
After ‘We've Caught the Sun’ was released two years ago – a reinterpretation of ‘Catch the Sun’ released in 2028 – we had to wait seven years to hear a new album from Monolyth after the release of ‘A Bitter End / A Brave New World’. " Seeds of Perseverance" is finally out: what does this title represent for you, after all these years of perseverance?
Indeed, perseverance is the key word of the album and, ultimately, it's a term that describes the band and its history rather well.
Perseverance because the line-up has changed again: two new members have joined. Despite this, we're not giving up, we're continuing on our way.
How do you explain all these line-up changes? Do you torment all the other members?
No, I don't think so, but now that you mention it (laughs)!
No, there have been quite a few things going on. Since Covid – as for everyone else – we've had to take new directions in life. In the middle of Covid, Vanessa left the Paris region and moved to Brittany, so rehearsals became complicated. Tristan's professional life – he's the lead guitarist on ‘A Bitter End / A Brave New World’ and ‘We've Caught the Sun’ – was starting to take up too much of his time, and he was no longer able to balance his professional and family life.
We continued to recruit different people. There were some incompatibilities at one point, and then Larry arrived. He was a good
match in terms of musical influences and vision for the band. And Crypp – the latest addition – was officially welcomed a year ago now. He arrived a little later on the ‘Seeds of Perseverance’ project – most of the work had already been done in terms of writing...
That's what perseverance is all about. And why did we come up with ‘Seeds of Perseverance’? In June 2024, we had a big meeting where we took everything back to square one. We had started writing an album, but the questions were: ‘What are we going to do with it? Where are we going? What is Monolyth today?’...
Precisely, did you ask yourselves why you should persevere and therefore give up?
Not at all! That's not the question we asked ourselves that day.
Does that mean you asked yourselves that question in the past?
No (smile)!
But that day, we asked ourselves whether the way the band had been functioning up until then was still viable. We went around the table to find out what everyone's expectations were for the band and for this album. It became clear that there were habits to break and new things to build, and ways of working to . That day, we decided to start from scratch with the work we had begun on this album, which had started during Covid or even a little before... We kept a few things. Until then, Amaury, the singer, and I were the only composers in the band.
So that was the main change that came out of that meeting?
Exactly!
Does that mean that with songwriting being more democratic within Monolyth, we should be hearing from the band more often and no longer have to wait seven years for new material from you?
We hope so, anyway (laughs)!
Despite everything, do you think that some of the tracks that were composed but not selected will be released...
...as B-sides? Some tracks were simply eliminated because they were a rehash of ideas we had already used for ‘A Bitter End / A Brave New World’ at the time. It felt like a rehash and wasn't relevant.
On the other hand, instead of discarding other tracks, we simply rewrote them. For example, the basis of “Prison Life” is quite old, but we rewrote it, reinterpreted it and everyone had a hand in it.
This new democratic way of working, where everyone contributes, is a breath of fresh air for the band...
Absolutely!
There was a slight drop in motivation for everyone at one point...
but also for the fans, knowing that the new compositions will be less repetitive or sound less ‘rehashed’, as you said?
That's exactly right! There was a slight dip in motivation for everyone at one point, and we realised we had to react very quickly. Following the meeting in June 2024 and with the momentum that had just been created, we set ourselves the goal of releasing the album in the spring of 2025. We worked twice as hard because, in order to achieve this goal, the album had to be recorded at the beginning of winter. From June 2024 to October – when we entered the studio – we resumed composing and wrote the album as it stands today.
Still on the subject of perseverance. This album demonstrates your perseverance, but also that of your audience: what do you have to say to them to make up for it?
(Laughs) We're not going to apologise for taking seven years to release this album simply because eleven years had passed between the first and second: we've done a lot better (Laughs)!
It's true that in principle we would have liked to release the third album earlier, but we focused on re-recording ‘Catch the Sun’ and that took time, resources and energy... We also needed time to recover from that and let the project mature a little more.
With the little hindsight we have, if we had had to release this third album earlier, it wouldn't have sounded like this at all.
There wouldn't have been this rethink and therefore the seeds of the other members.
Exactly. It wouldn't have germinated in the same way (smiles)!
So we can definitely reassure your fans – thanks to this fresh start – and go so far as to say that they won't have to wait seven years to hear a new Monolyth album...
The album was released two weeks ago. For now, we're focusing on promotion. We've set a date at the beginning of the year to start talking about the future, and maybe we'll already be discussing the next album.
The album artwork, created by Batt, who is also behind the drums, is very symbolic, with seeds growing and skeletons. How did you collectively work on this imagery with him, and how important is the link between visuals and music to you?
He had already created the artwork for "We Caught The Sun ". We've been following his work for a long time. We loved what he did for the reissue. So it was natural for us to let him take the reins of the artistic direction for this album. And very quickly, he wanted to break the mould, that is to say, move away from these dark visuals. We decided – on various levels, from the artwork to the stage outfits – to banish black. The idea was to move away from that a little, but it's in line with the progression of our themes towards something brighter, something that would elevate us spiritually, if I may say so. We wanted to bring this idea to life in the artwork: there's this famous seed – which has already started to grow – that becomes a plant growing out from behind these bars and, through its perseverance, manages to escape from this prison. The slightly floral idea came to him on a whim...
Had you already decided on the album title?
No!
In a way, the album title was inspired by the visuals?
Absolutely. Everything was done at the same time. We already had the concept of ‘Perseverance’; we knew that was what we wanted to represent. Then we asked ourselves what we needed to build around perseverance. ‘Perseverance’ on its own sounded too simple, too obvious. It was already the title of a track on the album.
At every meeting, he always has his notebook with him, in which he draws, but at one of them, he told us he had an idea involving plants, seeds...
The first single, “Better Off Somewhere Else”, highlights the melodic aspect, but isn't entirely representative of the album. Was that a strategic choice to surprise people later on?
A strategic choice in terms of making it a single? Yes!
A strategic choice in terms of the writing? Absolutely not. This track is part of what we kept, but in the construction of the song, and especially when we heard the demos with the vocals on top, we felt the potential for a single because there's a much more pop side to the overall approach of the song than what we usually do. We concluded that if there was going to be a single, it would be this one...
There's a therapeutic, cathartic side to the themes we tackle.
Beyond Amaury's vocal performance, we sometimes get the impression that he becomes the interpreter of the emotions of the whole band, as if he were putting into words and voice what everyone has been through in recent years. Is it his intention to embody not only his own struggles but also those of the other members, particularly you, Julien?
Amaury's lyrics have always been very personal, but he has always wanted to write lyrics that everyone can relate to at some point. When we talk about the different themes on the album, there are personal struggles against oneself, we talk about addictions, we even talk about depression... These are subjects that have affected us all at different times in our lives, especially in recent years, when we've faced quite a few small changes that haven't always been very positive. In fact, he is keen to reach out to people who have experienced these kinds of things, so that everyone can identify with it a little and we can take people on our journey and engage them with the themes we address.
It's true that there is a therapeutic, cathartic side to the themes we address.
Your previous albums already included some electro touches. On ‘Seeds of Perseverance’, there are more synths, which are very well integrated with the rest of the music. How did you work on them and what role do they play in the overall balance of the album? And precisely – in light of what you said at the beginning of the interview – is this slightly more prominent role also linked to the seeds sown by the other members?
Yes! We started incorporating them on ‘A Bitter End / A Brave New World’ at the time, but very quickly we realised we could have gone further with these additions. We had already started to explore this a little more on ‘We Caught The Sun’ – Larry had already done the synths on ‘We Caught The Sun’ – and now that he's officially part of the team, we've taken it a little further and seen what we could get out of it (smiles)... It's incredible, an interview sponsored by Truffaut (laughs)!
Careful, you have to mention three different brands...
(Laughs) So, Jardiland, Gamm Vert...
On ‘A Bitter End / A Brave New World’, those touches came a little later, we added them. On this new album, the synths were integrated from the start, they're part of the initial composition. And so, inevitably, they stand out more and sound better. Larry worked hard on the arrangements of these orchestrations to achieve a more powerful final result.
Constant questioning
The album seems to play a lot on contrasts, between moments of resignation and anger, and others where we feel a kind of liberation. Is this a way of illustrating your personal and collective struggles? We're thinking in particular of the track “Like Razor Blades”, but do you feel that this aspect also runs through other tracks?
I would say that it runs through absolutely every track on the album. Each one has a theme that is quite meaningful to us: “Regenesis” – which opens the album just after “The Harvest” – is a bit like a summary of that famous meeting where we laid everything out on the table. It's about reinventing ourselves without necessarily reinventing the wheel, because we haven't reinvented the style we play. The constant questioning, this way of continuing to move forward, “Perseverance” also illustrates this very well. But also, “Like Razor Blades” as you said, “Into Oblivion”, “The Unexpected Flame”... each time there's something that speaks to us a lot in the contrasts, in the atmospheres... Even in terms of tempo, on the different tracks, it completely conveys the rage you can feel on “Time”, which is probably the shortest track we've written in almost twenty years, one of the only tracks under three minutes. That track is pure aggression, we had a lot of things to get off our chests.
So Monolythe has gone from prog metal to grindcore?
I wouldn't go that far (laughs)!
Amidst all this intensity, “Searching For...” surprises with its calmer, almost minimalist atmosphere, featuring a deep and composed electric guitar. Why did you include this kind of breathing space, and above all, why did you leave the track hanging, without an explicit answer? Searching... but for what exactly?
Our idea was to include interludes that we didn't have at all on previous albums, whether it was the slightly epic intro “Harvest”, “High & Low” which introduces “Into Oblivion” - if you listen to the two little lead guitars on “High & Low”, it's the main lead from “Into Oblivion” - and 'Searching For... “ too, if you pay attention to the lyrics, you'll hear that the song ends with 'Searching For the Unexpected Flame”, which is the title of the next song, “The Unexpected Flame”, and the way the guitar line, which is the main line in “Searching For...”, picks up on a chord progression that's in “The Unexpected Flame”...
So the answer is clear, but what is this flame, this unexpected fire?
It's not easy to say because this song isn't about my own experiences. It's about feelings, disappointments, winning someone back or winning yourself back.
This album is about perseverance, but as the title “Regenesis” suggests, it also evokes the reinvention of the band and of oneself in some way?
Absolutely!
Larry's and your guitar work is particularly striking on this album, between aggressive riffs and effective solos. Did you consciously seek to balance brutality and melody, or did it come naturally in your exchanges of riffs and ideas, where perhaps at one time you were the only one thinking about these aspects?
As I said earlier, until this album, Amaury and I were the only composers. This time, we brought Batt and Larry on board. Batt and Larry, following our rethink, locked themselves away for four days at Batt's house and came up with four tracks. Four tracks that ended up on the album, and we realised that they fit in well with the other tracks we were working on.
So we have four very different personalities with very different influences and a way of composing that is almost different each time.
This diversity could have resulted in a less coherent outcome, but that's not the case. How do you explain it?
I don't know. I think it's everyone's ability to integrate the roots of the band. Batt has been with the band since the beginning. We've known Larry for a few years because we had already toured together with Serenius at the time. I think it's almost unconscious in the end.
We are aware that we have reached a milestone in our career
We've been saying it since the beginning of the interview, everyone contributes to the whole: Amaury on vocals, Julien and Larry on guitars and Batt behind a sometimes insane rhythm section, as on “This Void Deep Inside”. Are you aware of this increased cohesion, and do you feel that this is the album that can take you to a new level?
I'm not going to say that we know it, that we feel it, but we hope so. We are aware that we have reached a new level in our career, in any case. We hope to reach it with the public. The feedback we've had so far – whether from aficionados or even those who discovered us with this album or even the media – has been very encouraging. We're starting to see some opportunities for live performances.
We hope it will open new doors for us and allow us to do lots more things.
On the other hand, with its fifteen tracks, including short instrumentals (“The Harvest” and “High & Low”), ‘Seeds of Perseverance’ is a particularly generous album, bucking the trend of an era in which many bands favour shorter formats. What place do these instrumentals occupy in the dynamics of the album, and is this a way for you to show the full range of your musical facets?
We were surprised ourselves by the length of this album. ‘A Bitter End / A Brave New World’ was already 58 minutes long. After that, we re-did the first album – which was 35 minutes long – and we thought it would be good to recapture that urgency, that spontaneity, that slightly raw format, and that it would be good to incorporate that into the next one. We failed miserably: we made a 57-minute album (laughs)!
Despite everything, when we compiled it all, we couldn't see ourselves leaving any tracks out: each one had its place in the process.
And it wouldn't have made sense given the overhaul you did, which involved everyone...
It would have been frustrating for everyone...
Regarding the place of the instrumentals. As I was saying earlier, at first we had even imagined something with more interludes than that. In the end, we decided to skim it down a little. It came naturally. We wanted to have transitions, introductions to certain tracks, and to revisit what we had done with the track “A Bitter End” on the second album, which started as a little ballad with an acoustic arpeggio and vocals. We wanted to recreate that atmosphere.
We found the Monolyth sound
Almost twenty years after your debut in 2006, do you feel that you have finally found ‘the Monolyth sound’, or do you consider that this sound is constantly evolving and never really fixed?
I would say that we have found the Monolyth sound. However, I doubt that it is fixed. I doubt that it is fixed because we are evolving, we are getting older, our influences are also evolving... So I can't guarantee that the next album will be as intense. Maybe we'll decide to tone things down a bit, or maybe we'll decide to drop that calm side and go in the completely opposite direction and release a 20-minute album.
In this regard, the mixing and mastering were entrusted to Thibault Bernard (Convulsound Productions). What did he bring to your sound that was specific?
In this case, we chose to go through a studio for all the creative phases of this album, whereas until now we had been recording at home and then sending the recordings out for mixing and mastering. For this album, we wanted to put together an ambitious project, we wanted to be ambitious right to the end, so we went into the studio like real pros. It wasn't easy. It wasn't because of Thibault, it's just that, personally, it was the first time I'd ever been into a studio to record. Usually, I record on my own in front of my PC and I can mess up 130 times if I want, I don't care: no one will know, except now (laughs)!
And the pressure of knowing that every take you have to redo is time spent and therefore money spent in the studio...
That's right! When you have a schedule to record the guitars in five or six days and you realise that on the fourth day, you still have five or six tracks to do. So yes, you feel a little pressure, but ultimately, it's pressure that can be extremely beneficial if you manage to channel it properly.
It can be paralysing for some people...
We avoided that!
Thibault helped give this album a depth and heaviness that we didn't particularly have on the previous ones. We're really happy with the work we've done!
On a personal level, music has always been the ultimate outlet!
Between your personal lives (family, work) and the commitment required by Monolyth, music seems to be a real catharsis for you. Is that also what explains the almost visceral intensity we feel in certain tracks?
Yeah! Personally, music has always been the ultimate outlet! The more I immersed myself in metal music, the more I immersed myself in that world and the violence it can convey at times, and the more I was calm on the outside, in my personal life. I've never been a violent person, but it's true that when we get together for rehearsals, in the studio or at concerts, that's really when we let loose and come out feeling calm...
The stage, precisely. What are your priorities today for promoting ‘Seeds of Perseverance’ on stage, both in France and internationally? Do you have any dates to announce, particularly for 2026, which marks the band's 20th anniversary?
We had our first date the day after the album was released, near Angoulême.
We have a date in Paris on 21 November – we're going to play at La Java, 105 rue du Faubourg du Temple – with Despite the End and Across the Seine...
There was supposed to be another date – in early December – in the Paris region, but it hasn't been confirmed yet.
That's for 2025, but what about 2026?
For now, I'm still managing Monolyth's bookings, which takes a lot of time and perseverance... (Laughs) I've reached a point where music has almost become secondary in Monolyth, which is tragic: I'm trying to find a booker.
Didn't you discuss this during the review meeting?
Yes, but we're all aware of our strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has their own area of expertise and preference. In my case, over time, I've developed a network... So I'm reactivating it, putting it to work to get as many dates as possible for 2026. And right now, we're starting to get some leads for festivals next summer, but nothing official yet.
You have a loyal fanbase in France, but also listeners internationally. Is it a major goal to develop Monolyth outside of France?
We had media coverage for our previous album, but so far we haven't had any for the new album. However, we did have a few orders from Japan, the United States and Spain very early on in the crowdfunding process we did in the spring. We were really happy about that.
Opening up internationally, yes! However, it's a network that's even harder to work with than ours, despite the fact that some countries are more metal-friendly than we are.
And finally, what are your concrete expectations for this album?
What we expect from this album is to be able to promote it on stage. It's the obvious answer, the classic answer, but that's really what drives us, being able to promote this album on as many stages as possible...
In recent years, we've been lucky enough to experience some really big stages and we'd love to be able to play on stages like that again.
Music Waves recently covered the Ultima Ratio tour with Dark Tranquillity, Soen... is it a possibility to play as the opening act for such bands as you have done in the past......
with Onslaught and Mors Principium Est...
In this regard, are you looking to get involved in this type of thing?
Those are avenues we've tried to pursue. The problem is that for the past three years, tours have become increasingly inaccessible. First of all, because you have to pay – you have to give a kidney to get your place on the bill – and on top of that, the bands come with line-ups that are already set, meaning three or even four bands, and as a result, there's no room left for you. If, despite everything, you want to join in, you'll play when the doors open, i.e. at 6 p.m...
If it's a one-off date, normally they won't ask you for anything. On the other hand, if it's a tour, the principle is
buy-on at £1,500 per date. We can't do that.
Despite everything, we often hear certain bands say that they will never pay to play, except that in the end, when you organise your own little tour on your own, you also pay to play. You just don't pay the same amounts because at £1,500 per date, if you're offered a tour of twenty dates, I'll let you do the maths, it quickly becomes expensive. But yes, the small tours you organise on your own – where you go away for a four-day weekend and play four dates – you'll have to pay for a van, petrol, tolls and accommodation, and you won't necessarily get a return on your investment, especially in terms of exposure.
So you always have to weigh up the pros and cons! Because with these dates at this price, in some cases, you still get the tour bus with the headline dates. You have to put it into perspective a little, but we don't have the financial means to do that.
Under these conditions, your expectations are to play more...
Our expectations are to play more and aim a little higher in terms of venues - try to book one or two festivals... - over the next two years. It's October, and I know very well that there's no chance – unless there's a sudden explosion and everyone wants us – that we'll be at Hellfest or Motocultor, at least not on the official stages.
We were talking about joining a date with Dark Tranquillity, but The Old Dead Tree is releasing an EP with two new tracks... Shouldn't we consider a joint stage, knowing that such a French line-up could attract a lot of people?
Actually, The Old Dead Tree are friends of ours, but strangely enough, I've never asked them...
You know what you have to do...
But it's true that it would be really cool. I've been a fan of this band since they started. I bought their first EP when it came out. I'd love to tour with them... But again, it's a question of being there early enough to get on the schedule. They don't do their own booking. Last I heard, they're with Base Production, which is one of my next targets (smile)...
In short, there's a lot of promise for the future... Thank you...
Thank you, and thank you to Music Waves for following us on our little journey for at least seven years now.
The pleasure is all ours.
Thank you very much.
Thank you to Calgepo for his contribution...