On the heels of their headline-grabbing first two singles, “Oligarchs” and “Mother Martyr”, Miami-based rockers Monolith are back with a new track. “Gooru” is the follow-up single and the next piece of the musical concept story that the trio comprising Hernán “Motley” Rodríguez (bass/vocals), Andy Barrow (guitars/vocals), and Mike Mangini (drums) started telling earlier this year. The song, produced by Gabo Sanoja, did not come easy and was one of the more difficult compositions to complete for Monolith.
Rodríguez comments: “The process with ‘Gooru’ was long…. Andy and I created several iterations of the song, and it’s such a central part of the whole story. As always, Andy created all the parts, and Gabo put them together the way you hear them now. The final arrangements of voices were created after several sessions where Gabo and Andy worked to find the perfect melody in each individual part. And in fact, the song had several more lyrics that didn’t make the final cut. All these lyrics were master crafted by Andy, and people will still end up hearing them tell other parts of the story, in other songs.”
To coincide with the new song, the band has released a music video for “Gooru”. The video was directed by previous collaborator Guillermo Figueredo and makes a commentary on the state of influencers in the world and the effect social media has on the masses. An attractive influencer makes posts that spread virally, but all are being controlled by the “Gooru”. The video might leave fans with some questions, but that is all part of the master plan that Monolith is using to unveil this new material and the overall concept story they have been telling with each release.
Rodríguez adds: “‘Gooru’ was conceived as a song that criticizes social media, and all the misinformation created by the corporate media in general. In the world of Monolith, these are the tools holding down our everyday heroes…. Fighting back is pushing the evolution of our own society, so it can be born. We’ve seen the Starchild born to the ‘Mother Martyr’, and the plot only thickens with ‘Gooru’, as the Monolith story shows a new dawn to humanity.”
Monolith burst onto the music scene earlier this year when they surprised the world with the announcement of their first single, “Oligarchs”. The song grabbed headlines when news spread about Mangini joining band founder Rodríguez and Barrow in this new project. The announcement of Monolith would mark the first band Mangini would participate after his tenure in Dream Theater. The music video for “Oligarchs” was released last month and has been viewed over 160,000 times since it was released. The follow-up, “Mother Martyr”, continued to win over fans around the globe, and that video reached over 100,000 views in five short weeks.
