Review: Monster Island: Dream Tiger

There is not a whole lot written about the band Monster Island and that's really too bad. Just to listen to the lyrics on their re-release from 2001, "Dream Tiger" and I'm immediately taken back to a very familiar place; a place we've all been before; a place of shame, insecurity, misdirected rage, curious indignation, sought approval, and the ultimate disappointment that these actions are never forthcoming.

This album sounds to me, in my guesstimation, as a freshman effort from a sophomore band. We all remember the pain and humiliation of being just on the cusp of something much greater; this thing called "adult life" and the constant frustration when we'd always just come up short. This is what this album sounds like to me; a picture in a frame of a person we once were years before. This picture may be embarrassing to look at today, but if you'd closely examine it, you might see some greater hints of the person you'd come to be. The slight turn in your head and the angle at which the brim of your cap was cocked; the way your head turned away with disinterest yet your body lunged forward in yearning and need says so much about the person you have become. Or the laser stare which cuts through the camera lens and had taken you from your Junior Prom all the way to the bright lights of Hollywood; just as you'd always imagined. Maybe not in the way you'd imagined but the tests of time are present.

So listening to this album which features strange sounds and haunting vocals I was immediately taken back to my grandmothers porch. The initial cling and clang of instruments and the hypnotic hum of an organ made me feel as though I were on the back porch with Grandma, whiling away the early summer days of my youth as the wind chimes tinkled in the still air. This is the way for this band all throughout.