Tilton Johnson

Album Review

Coinmonster, who hails from Youngstown, OH, put out a half-dozen albums prior to Tilton Johnson; however, most of these were self-released and hard to find unless you troll used-record stores around the Ohio/Pennsylvania border. It's both obvious and unfair why this band has toiled in obscurity for so long — understandable due to the esoteric nature of Coinmonster, and criminally iniquitous for the same reason.

The band's avant-garde jazzcore would be a hit in the Mr. Bungle circles, and that's only a small facet of what Coinmonster does — and even that's a rather imperfect and inelegant way to sum up that facet to begin with. Prog rock guitar noodling smashes into off-kilter time changes, stops, starts, and the inclusion of notes that couldn't belong where they're thrust but whose inclusion seems perfectly natural all the same — kinetic output could come from Ornette Coleman if he rocked or King Crimson if they weren't old farts. It's a musical mind-f*ck you can dance to, or just observe, slack-jawed in amazement. ~ Brian O'Neill, All Music Guide