2 - Monarch - The Grandeur That Was Rome

Our alarm clock is set to 88.1 WKNC here in Raleigh, NC so every morning I wake up to fairly decent college radio programming (thankfully they don't have the metal hour or bluegrass hour scheduled on weekday mornings... not that there's anything wrong with metal or bluegrass, just not my choice for pulling me out of a deep sleep). I can't remember the DJ's name, but for a while there they had a really good guy who had a show from 6-8AM and his music tastes aligned farily closely with mine. Well anyway, I remember hearing the song "Wasteful" from this album as I woke up one morning and immediately being drawn to it. Well as is custom on a lot of college radios, they announce songs in big groups so I somehow missed what the song was. But, my research skills are pretty good in this area and 99.9% of the time I can use Google or other internet tools and find the songs. This was not the case with this one... Couldn't find a single thing. So, I resorted to posting on WKNC's forums and it turns out that this DJ doesn't only play good music, but also soes a good job with the rest of his responsibilities and responded immediately. Turns out Monarch is a widely unknown and very young band out of Pittsburgh, PA. I bought the album immediately and was blown away by the whole thing once I got it. It has been a regular listen of mine ever since. And everyone I have played it for loves it too. Perhaps part of my love for the album is because of its obscurity and the fact that I cannot believe this music is not being heard by exponentially more people than it currently is. But mostly, I love this album because it completely moves me. It is very passionate, very spiritual (yes, the band seems to have a Christian leaning, but the songs are universal to me), and, simply, beautiful. There is definitely some British influence here, but remove the tongue from the cheek and add in earnest emotion. And the lead singer's voice is gorgeous. Pure, soaring tenor. I know very little about this band as they seem to enjoy their obscurity or something. Their website is up and down and not very updated when it IS up. I know they played SXSW last year and then got in a car wreck on the way back (minor injuries, I think) but that's about it. Would be tragic as hell if they fade away. Actually, I did just hear one of the songs on XM Radio the other day (got it for my wife for Christmas knowing she would love it, but I expected to be personally underwhelmed... which I have not been at all... but I will write about that later once I finish this poll) so hopefully they are still alive and well. Whatever the case, this one will go down in my collection as a true favorite and I am sure I will listen to it for a long time to come. Enjoy!