30. Preview of forthcoming EP, One, by Only Monsters

Originally published, August 15th, 2024

About the Artist

Only Monsters Is the stage name for Hayden. When Hayden isn’t cutting into the hearts and souls of his fans with his dark, brooding, post-gothic darkwave music, he can be found in a high school classroom teaching social studies. He is from the Washington area and he decided to put down the chalk and pick up the mic because he found music as a way to reflect and work through his observiation of society; the positive and the negative.

Only Monsters have been releasing music since 2023. Their debut LP, Influence released in 2023 and he followed it with the release of No One Hears, No One Sees in 2024. Stylistically, his sound has progressed from a more organic folk-punk sound to the more electronic darkwave that he features today.

Only Monsters exhibits a dark and intimidating presence musically, but make no mistake; Hayden is more than just that. He is more than a teacher. Speaking with him, he is a passionate person. Not that anyone else isn’t. But he makes his passion known. He makes his passion for his music known. He also expresses passion for what we are trying to do with Fifteen Minutes of Fame. He is a steady participant with posts. He engages with artists who have been featured or mentioned and he does his part to promote the movement. His passion gives me passion. Whenever I feel like I’m not reaching people, it’s usually at that moment I get a notification with his username at the headline. He is the type of person I want to fill out cyberspace with. An army of independent artists just lifting one another up. We should all take a page out of his book.

About the EP

“One” is a three song EP with a run time of just over ten minutes. It will be releasing August 16, 2024. One is to be the first of a three part series of scheduled EPs Only Monsters plan to release. The songs are inspired by Carl Sagan's speech, “The Pale Ble Dot.” 

About the Music

One has a mostly electronic and synthetic feel. It sounds like it has elements of post-gothic, darkwave, house, and alternative and grunge. Only Monsters performed all instruments, programmed drums and percussion, and performed all vocals. The style quality has an essence of Nine Inch Nails, with a beat style of Kavinsky.

Vocally, Only Monsters performs with a true baritone and tends to live in a dissonant, uneasy space to create the dark ambiance of the music. He sounds like Sully Erna of Godsmack. In fact, I immediately thought of their hit VooDoo when I heard his vocal performance. There are a couple of instances where I questioned the pitch but the theme is so dissonant, it works as an artistic concept of the piece. 

About the Lyrics

As I previously stated, the EP was inspired by “Pale Blue Dot.” Each song has its own inspirations from the author’s explanation as well. For “Lessons in Obsolescence,” Hayden explores an overall theme of inevitability but also targets institutionalization and the fallacious concept of power deriving from money, and corporate greed. In “Gods of Dreamland,” Hayden used the title from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and the lyrics are derivatives of different stories that are referenced to Lovecraft’s work.

“The Endless,” Hayden says, “finishes with deft emotional clarity in the face of mortality.” The lyrical inspiration came from an expert of Sagan’s work, “Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can. Because the cosmos is also within us. Were made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.”

“In the place where darkness touches the depths. Out of time vanished mountains blackened death.” The author is exploring mortality through the lens of analogy. The lyrics give an anxious feeling that the world is a big egg timer. There is an interesting line where the author states a nightmare awaits then tells the listener to not wake up. This could have been a metaphor where the author is telling the listener that we all must accept our inevitable fate and face the fear of our own mortality. This something I do and struggle to do often. Now that I am in my forties, I can say I have lived a life. But I can also say I have a lot of life to live. I think the author is struggling with the first part of that concept and he is fighting to get to the next stage where we embrace our fate and celebrate our being.

I had initially told Hayden my favorite song was initially Lessons in Obsolescence. Now, having listened several more times, it is definitely The Endless. I love the line “no mythology, no heaven or hell.” This aligns with my personal beliefs. It is this realization that freed me as a person. “I am the universe. I understand my worth,” and “I am not part of god’s plan. I want to understand what I am.” These are all concepts mankind have pondered for centuries. To put it in words here, at this moment, was an eloquent design and aptly fitting to bring closure to this wonderful performance.

Final Thoughts

When I first listened to this EP, I made sure to reach out to Hayden to express my gratitude for getting to work with him to write this review. I’ve been listening to his music for a couple of months now and I just heard tremendous growth in this music. 

The thing I love about what Only Monsters has done here is they have taken a very dark and depressing series of topics and they explored it both lyrically and musically. But there is this resolution that should be just as equally unsettling but it isn’t. Because we know and can expect the unsettling. It is what puts us here. We get to ask the questions. We get to form the opinions. Just as Descartes famously said, “cogito, ergo sum.” I think therefore I am. He’s not saying anything about found answers. He is talking about finding them. It is in that search where we find our existence. On the pale blue dot, amongst the stars, in the universe. Down to every atom and every subatomic particle. We are. Only Monsters has given us a nuanced explanation of that on a deeply personal level.