Influences: El Moono

On their recently released, and mightily impressive, debut full-length, ‘The Waking Sun’, El Moono showcased a wide breadth of sounds and textures in their brand of alt-metal. From the wall of noise that transcends on ‘Illusionist’ final moments, the thunderous hardcore blasts on ‘The First Man on Mars’, and the ethereal, harmonious bridges on ‘The Charm,’ the Brighton quartet’s range is expansive. It leaves you with a record that requires repeated listens, not only to be appreciated but to explore El Moono‘s layered approach.

Along its 13 tracks, ‘The Waking Sun’ takes in shoegaze, grunge, post-hardcore, dance-pop, prog, and math-rock elements. With such a vast array of styles blended together in their delightful alt-metal cocktail, it made perfect sense to find out about the bands that El Moono consider as their influences.

Deftones

Deftones greatly influence the four of us; we’ve been listening to their catalogue back to front for years now, and unapologetically wear this on our sleeves! From their ethereal soundscapes to huge riffs and beautiful melodies, Deftones have been hugely important to our band. If we had to pick one album in particular, it would be ‘Diamond Eyes’.

Chelsea Wolfe

From her powerful stage presence, sludgy, doom-driven industrialism, to her stripped-back emotive tracks, Chelsea Wolfe’s albums are always cohesive bodies of work. Wolfe always exposes vulnerability in her music, which we also aspire to do. We found her influence most prominent on the title track ‘The Waking Sun’, and inviting Leah Stanhope to collaborate on the sprawling, post-rock end section helped take the song to a higher plane.

Radiohead

We love Radiohead’s songwriting and musicality, while also influencing our lyricism; Thom Yorke’s metaphors about depression in particular. Radiohead have always seemed free to be truly experimental, unshackled by concepts of genre – particularly on ‘In Rainbows’ and ‘Kid A’. The pacing and running order of ‘The Waking Sun’ was definitely influenced by years of listening to Radiohead records.

The Mars Volta

The Mars Volta have always looked to an array of different cultural influences throughout their discography, combining these into their unique sound confidently, without it ever coming across as a gimmick. There’s a world music influence in the instrumentation throughout ‘The Waking Sun’ (Harry even snuck a didgeridoo on ‘Phantom’), but it’s particularly noticeable on ‘The First Man On Mars’. We experimented with tuned percussion, which made the dance-pop sections stand out even more against the doomy riff breakdowns.

Nothing

We fell in love with Nothing’s ‘The Great Dismal’ shoegaze-inspired sound. They utilise layers of dissonance and reverb to build huge walls of sound while keeping the production clean and powerful. Their dynamics also inspired us to embrace light and shade – Nothing showcase their ability to control sombre, melancholic tones with dynamic shifts, juxtaposing each other while remaining concise.

The Police

Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers are absolutely world-class musicians, using complex techniques to create really accessible music. Stewart Copeland’s drumming is simultaneously really proggy and over the top, while perfectly serving the song, and this ethos was a huge influence on Chris’ drumming.

Raketkanon

Weird time signatures, interesting instrumentation, and huge riffs. We loved this band so much! Raketkanon’s combination of electronic elements into really abrasive yet dance-y music really excited us when we first heard it. Listen to ‘Phantom’ off of The Waking Sun to hear this influence in full flow.