A proclamation and prayer as much as it is an album, Harlow’s Monkeys deliver a decidedly artful piece of folk rock that’s strongly infused with meaning, purpose, and poise on “when the world for humans end”. Opening with a spoken word piece set to minimal arrangements, the record quickly goes into the depth of its subject matter with a classical sound drawing from rock and roll, folk, and more.
The record is a powerful and unflinching critique of late-stage capitalism and its impact on our environments. The band delivers a searing indictment of a system that has left so many behind, with each song tackling the ways in which capitalism has failed to uphold the values it purportedly champions. The EP is intensely personal and political, with epic scope and dramatic flair. Taking from what could often be interpreted and listened to as doomer music, there’s a hopefulness innate and pronounced with the way the arrangements progress, something uplifting and hopeful with the rising and glowing soundscapes they craft.
From the inescapable and ever so infectious chorus line of “you don’t have to change if you don’t want to”, you immediately find yourself drawn to the message by just singing along and joining the larger cause. Then the minimal and withdrawn beginning of “I can’t self help my way out of late stage capitalism” might hit your lived experience a bit too close to home. I find the lyrics across this project so relatable and subtle, never trying to be holier than thou but by being more engaging to the mundane, appealing to the everyday, and finding the problems within the system at large.
It’s a sonic pleasure throughout as well, the kind of well placed harmonies, effortless instrumental progression, and subtlety to each arrangement that makes it a sheer delight to play through back to front.