Give it up for New Zealand for producing this hard-to-pigeonhole
band with the rather baffling name.
Monsterworks was formed in the late nineties
by friends Ian (guitars) and Jon (vocals/guitars) and released
demos and the like while building a local following.
A debut album was released in 2000, but then Ian decided
to move to England.
A new guitarist was found and another album
was put out in 2002, but by this time Jon realized the band
was growing and that ultimately it would be difficult to
move to the next level while still in New Zealand.
So he, too, packed up and took off to England, where he
met up with his former mate Ian and, with new members
in tow, Monsterworks was reactivated.
Since then the band has been one of the more prolific around,
averaging an album a year and twice have released two full albums
in a single year.
Musically they're all over the place, cherry-picking from several of
the major subgenres (thrash, death, black, prog) to forge a quite original
style.
It was earlier noted
here that Spacial Operations (released for free in 2007)
bore a resemblance to
Devin Townsend
and
Strapping Young Lad,
both musically and vocally, though hardly enough to label this band
a soundalike.
They seem content to release their albums independently (and often
for free download), though they certainly are good enough to be signed
to a label if they wanted it.
