Hailing from the town of Bayonne, in the Basque region of southern France, the light-shirking demons known as Monarch! specialize in improbably slow and sludgy drone-doom, in the semblance of (but often even harsher than) Khanate, Corrupted, and Rigor Sardonicus. Formed in 2004 by vocalist Emilie Bresson (aka Eurogirl), and also featuring guitarist Shiran Kaidin, bassist MicHell Bidegain, and drummer Guillaume Lestage, Monarch! first crawled out of the moist cemetery earth with their self-titled debut in 2005 (featuring just three monster-length "songs" -- a sign of things to come), following it with 2006's Speak of the Sea, 2007's Die Tonight, and several mini-releases in between. 2007 also saw the U.S. release of a two-disc Monarch! compilation called Dead Men Tell No Tales, through Crucial Blast. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, Rovi