Live Review: Mono, Dumbsaint, Last Days Of Kali

One of the most enigmatic acts of our time, Japan's Mono are no strangers to Australia's shores.

However, for the first time in the band's 18-year history, Adelaide fans were finally able to experience the legend that is Mono's live show. True artists in every sense of the word, the four-piece are consummate masters of their chosen medium: instrumental rock music. Playing the final shows of yet another relentlessly busy year, the Requiem For Hell tour also featured some outstanding Australian talent.

The night began promisingly with local trio Last Days Of Kali treating those gathered to a short-but-intensely brooding set of sonorous indie doom. Immensely focused, the band  effortlessly merged moments of light and shade, holding the growing assemblage of onlookers transfixed until the end.

Sydney's Dumbsaint were next in line to mesmerise with their unique display of self-created short films that were synchronised seamlessly with the accompanying live soundtrack. It was tempting to become lost in the visuals, but impossible to do so entirely thanks to the omnipresent music there to belt you back into submission with its sheer heaviness and power. Captivating the audience from start to finish, the band left the stage to great applause.

Once again the room darkened in anticipation of the main act. From the opening notes of Ashes In The Snow, the remainder of the night unfolded as if it were a dream. Performing an array of tracks from the vast majority of their releases, Mono were somewhat of a revelation to behold, the musicians so intimate in their connection that it seemed as though they were working as one fluid entity. The perfect marriage of beauty and desolation, Mono's music wound its way into the core of the listener, rousing some spectators into rapture that could barely be contained.

It is their mastery in articulating emotion so profoundly, without so much as a spoken word, that has seen the music of Mono endure. And there is no greater way to capture the essence of this magic than to experience it live.