- Julia's War
- 2026
Editor's Note: Our Album Of The Week column is running one day late this week. Sorry!
When it comes to Frankenstein, you can probably sort the majority of the literate, English-speaking population into two major categories: Those who’ve spoken something along the lines of “Frankenstein is the doctor’s name, actually” and those who have received that correction. One might think that in the two centuries of English classes, Halloween costumes, and screen adaptations since Mary Shelley first published her groundbreaking gothic horror novel, we might have a little more consensus about who is — or, rather, are — considered the story’s true monster. But I like to think that Shelley would’ve delighted in the ambiguity between what comprises a human and a monster. I think Mx Lonely probably get a kick out that, too.
Vocalist Rae Haas got the idea to name their band Mx Lonely because that’s the nickname they gave the shadowy figure that would appear during their bouts of sleep paralysis. The Brooklyn band’s debut full-length All Monsters arrives this Friday, and it’s a comprehensive introduction: The album’s eight songs signal the band’s reverence of ‘80s indie rock, contemporary noise rock, and all the pedal-loving guitar bands they bonded over when they first met in Alcoholics Anonymous just ahead of the pandemic.
With a lot of its lyrics rooted in the Jugnian practice of shadow work — achieving self-acceptance by prodding at the more shameful, suppressed facets of our personalities — All Monsters, like Shelley, argues that monsters are more often found in subtle, everyday encounters. Oftentimes addiction, whether to substances or bad habits, has a hand in creating the monstrosities Haas sings about, and All Monsters roots them in lived experiences. The steady build-up of “Blue Ridge Mtns,” for instance, finds Haas “freaking out in the back seat” on the way to a rehab facility, while the nü-metal chug of “Whispers In The Fog” posits anxiety as a crutch that can be galvanizing one moment and debilitating the next.
Meanwhile, on the stellar early single “Shape Of An Angel,” Haas reckons with juggling co-morbid dependencies. “I’m in love with Adderall and validation,” they belt over stylistically muddled guitars. A sense of isolated helplessness looms when they allude to the Virgin Mary, who appears not as a saint but as a flaky acquaintance who asks to bum a cigarette immediately before leaving the kickback. And speaking of saints, All Monsters also grapples with the notion that the binary fates often promised to us tend to flatten the human experience: “All monsters go to heaven, and all the bad shit you did here was fine,” Haas proclaims with almost a Courtney Love-style snarl on “All Monsters Go To Heaven.” It’s a comforting notion, until it sinks in that the same rule would apply to the most truly heinous of us.
All Monsters doesn’t excuse the depraved and the immoral, but it does argue in favor of treating our own depravities and immoralities with compassion if we ever want to purge them. On the sludgy, sultry “Big Hips,” Haas invokes puberty growing pains from their transgender perspective, employing some subtle dick jokes in the process: “I know you want to explain to me/ How you know I got/ Big hips for a boy.” The sing-along hooks of “Return To Sender” offer a refreshing, cathartic take on one-sided obsession, written by Haas from the perspective of someone who was simply indifferent towards them.
There’s a throughline of grounded optimism on All Monsters, particularly on the sweeping “Anesthetic,” which Haas has explicitly described as “a love song to the addict. “I don’t wanna live in a world without you/ I couldn’t recognize the truth/ I know your heart is cold and smart." Anesthetics, it’s worth pointing out, aren’t used to cease the onset of pain — they’re administered before pain is even detectable. Pain isn’t usually pleasant, but it’s useful in locating where damage might’ve been done. Then, the healing can start.
All Monsters is out 2/21 via Julia's War.
Other albums of note out this week:
• Mumford & Sons' Prizefighter
• Baby Keem’s Ca$ino
• Larry June, Curren$y, & The Alchemist's Spiral Staircases
• Peaches' No Lube So Rude
• Liz Cooper's New Day
• New Found Glory's Listen Up!
• Lil Tjay's They Just Ain’t You
• Hilary Duff's luck…or something
• Bryce Vine's LET’S DO SOMETHING STUPID!
• Lucid Express' Instant Comfort
• Spill Tab's AngieAngieAngie
• Mirah's Dedication
• Olivia Belli's Daimon
• Bella Litsa's Drasticism
• Rob Zombie's The Great Satan
• Sports' Sports
• Leigh-Anne's MY EGO TOLD ME TO
• Phew & Danielle de Picciotto's Paper Masks
• Michael Monroe's Outerstellar
• Steven Brown's In This Very World
• Nicole McCabe's Color Theory
• Abronia's Shapes Unravel
• Hen Ogledd's DISCOMBOBULATED
• The Band Of Heathens' Country Sides
• Midori Hirano's OTONOMA
• The Goldberg Sisters' When The Ships Of My Dreams Return
• Naïka's ECLESIA
• Nathan Fake's Evaporator
• Marielle V Jakobsons' The Patterns Lost To Air
• Hemi Hemingway's Wings Of Desire
• Tammy Shine's Ok Shine Ok
• The Veer Union's Reinvention
• Altin Gün's Garip
• Apparat's A Hum Of Maybe
• Toys That Kill's Triple Sabotage
• The Enemy's Social Disguises
• INCANDESCENCE's Hors Temps
• Laughing Hyenas' That Girl – Live Recordings 1986-1994
• The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis' Deface The Currency
• Lightning Stills' Lightning Stills
• Eric Hilton's A Sky So Close
• Coscradh's Carving The Causeway To The Otherworld
• Exhumed's Red Asphalt
• Dominique Fils-Aimé's My World Is The Sun
• Viic Woods' Unravel Time
• Gabriela Richardson's ISOLA
• Ally Evenson's SPEED KILLS
• Moby's Future Quiet
• Rusty Santos' Psycho Horses
• Abstracted’s Hiraeth
• Adam Goldberg's When The Ships Of My Dreams Return
• Borokov Borokov's World War Two
• Isabel Pine's Fables
• Chris Garneau's In Reverse
• Absolutely's Paracosm
• The Setting's The Setting
• Sylosis' The New Flesh
• CVCHE's Get Fluffy
• Sukpatch's Thin Skin Driver
• Kerrin Connolly's Simpleton
• Beggar Weeds' Tragedy In U.S. History
• David Hillyard & The Rocksteady 7's Home For Dinner
• Jobi Riccio's Face The Feeling
• Elvis Presley's EPiC (Elvis Presley In Concert): Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
• Mozzy & EST Gee's Not A Chance In Hell
• Killing Pace's HCPM
• Mimi Webb's Confessions: An Unexpected Turn Of Events (Deluxe)
• The Neighbourhood's (((((ultraSOUND)))))+ (Deluxe)
• Babyfxce E's Da Realest
• Trauma Ray's Carnival EP
• Sydney Quiseng's That’s My Baby! EP
• Mothica's Somewhere In Between EP
• Life Aquatic Band's Stuck In The Mud EP
• Worm Shepherd's Dawn Of The Iconoclast EP
• Charm School's Skadenfreude Ploy EP
