The Audio Perv

High-octane, guitar-driven band MONA, who won this year’s MTV VMA as Brand New For 2011 – after also being nominated on the BBC’s influential Sound Of 2011 poll – has set February 21, 2012, as the release date in the U.S. for their long-awaited self-titled debut album on their own Zion Noiz label, through Mercury Records, a division of Island Def Jam Music Group. The 11-song album was produced by the band’s Nick Brown and mixed by Rich Costey (credits: Muse, Interpol, Audioslave).

“Lean Into the Fall,” the newest single from MONA, was blasted to Alternative Rock, Alternative Specialty and Active Rock radio formats. The song follows up MONA’s previous U.S. single “Listen To Your Love,” which can be heard on the band’s website, www.monatheband.com (along with video and other tracks off the album).

Nashville-based MONA is currently on tour with Airborne Toxic Event through the end of November, following two weeks of co-headlining dates with the Funeral Party. (Please see tour dates below.) This comes on the heels of a busy summer festival schedule, including Summer Sonic in Japan, and UK heavyweight destinations Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds.

Earlier in the spring, MONA showcased at the SXSW (South By Southwest) Music Conference in Austin, Texas, clips of which were shown on NBC’s Last Call with Carson Daly. Check out those performances here and here.

Dubbed “the breakthrough rock act we’ve been wishing, hoping and praying for” by the Huffington Post, MONA made quite an impression on UK rock audiences when they traveled there in the spring to support the UK release of their debut single, “Listen To Your Love.” They returned to the U.S. and began road-testing new material from the album, earning early praise from the New York Times, Spin and Rolling Stone, among others.

MONA – Nick Brown (lead vocals, guitar, chief songwriter), Jordan Young (guitar), Zach Lindsey (bass), and Vince Gard (drums) – have their roots in midwestern Dayton, Ohio, where Nick and Vince got their first taste of the stage at a Pentecostal church that banned secular music. Relocating to Nashville, they hooked up with Kentucky natives Zach and Jordan, and soon began writing and recording in the basement of their Nashville home.

While MONA’s style is a nod to Elvis Presley’s swagger, Johnny Cash’s grit, and James Dean’s cool, it’s also impossible to deny their unbridled talent and ability to write stadium bound rock songs. It’s evident that MONA is bound for greatness, but they don’t forget what drives them, “at the end of the day, we’re just four dudes making some noise in a garage and just having fun.”

MONA “Lean Into The Fall”
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www.youtube.com/monatheband
www.monatheband.com