Monobloc Bend the Laws of Physics at the Music Hall of Williamsburg
Brooklyn, New York - July 23, 2026
Have you ever dreamed that you’re running as hard as you can, but you’re not moving? It’s a sensation of surreal, visceral performance, and Monobloc brought that same concentrated energy to the stage at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. The band (vocalist/guitarist Timothy Waldron, bassist Michael Silverglade, drummer Zack Pockrose, and guitarist Ben Scofield) headlined the Neighborhood Noise lineup alongside SHAGGO, For Opal, and Torture and the Desert Spiders.
Drenched in blue lights, Monobloc played like they were treading water; cool, collected, focused. It was a fitting backdrop for previewing tracks from their upcoming debut album, the stage a liminal space holding what simultaneously exists and is yet to come. If there’s one thing Monobloc knows how to do, it’s tight songwriting that still finds room to breathe. Reverby, retro new wave beats meet an understated post-punk attitude and a dynamic delivery. Choppy riffs attack for emphasis and then are smoothed over by rich bass and buffed to a slick edge. Interwoven, driving rhythms ebb and flow, building momentum and vibrating through the floor as the energy bounces around the room, magnetizes attention, and builds.
One of the previewed tracks, “Till Tomorrow Brings,” borders on a ballad upon its opening, complete with winking cymbals. The beat stutters, momentarily stalls out like an engine, punches up again, and then the song unwinds into ringing, sweeping riffs accented by a raspy scream. “Ravena” and “City,” from Monobloc’s April EP release ‘Love, I’m Gonna Jump the Gap,’ carry a suave 80s timbre reminiscent of neon lights on rain-slicked streets. “Down in the middle, heart of the city,” echoed through the room as the crowd surged in response to the drop in the shivery, silvery “City” and its relentless rhythms. Monobloc bookended the show with the penultimate song “I’m Just Trying to Love You,” their first track that defined their identity as a band. This song feels a little more optimistic than their other repertoire, but still carries the moodiness of yearning. A bright guitar rhythm is reminiscent of an insistent doorbell tone begging to be let inside.
Even when Waldron is looking into the crowd, it feels as if he’s speaking to himself, thinking out loud and making sense of things while the audience eavesdrops on his stream-of-consciousness monologue and cryptic revelations. Monobloc’s lyric-forward songs are introspective and atmospheric without coming off as self-pitying or contrived. There’s a reserved confidence to Monobloc’s stage presence, but that’s not to say that they’re listless or bored; sonic energy bursts through in controlled, honed cohesion to hold the listener’s attention in place, pinning it every time it dares to wander.
It makes sense that recurring themes within Monobloc’s songs are restless city life, dissecting emotions and past moments, the blurred edges of interrupted movement. Something is either slipping away and being fought for—“I was hanging, I was hanging on to it” / “go down swinging”—or its long-gone presence is a missed opportunity—“I can’t take you there, it’s not there any longer.” Their songs are felt most acutely in the distilled space just before the next vigorous riff, bass scrape, cutting lyric, and the final drop. They nail down that pivotal moment of change before the aftermath sets in and hold it at a standstill just long enough to capture that tension in their sound and make sense of it. Monobloc’s specialty is crafting an auditory parallax effect, the optical illusion that makes a plane appear to be frozen in midair. Past, present, and future exist at once as they draw inspiration from bands that influenced them and reanimate the genres through their own retelling. This nostalgic/current/cutting-edge crystallization is a musical Shrödinger’s cat suspended in possibility, and based on the precision of their expanding discography, Monobloc know exactly where they’re headed. And how to make an exit.
Nothing is immune to the laws of physics and time. On their last song, Monobloc broke their hypnosis, and all of the pressurized energetic potential had one place to go—out. Their set came to a thrashing end, the instrumental acceleration of slashing fretboards and drumsticks after all of the rhythmic revving. The auditory lightning Monobloc ensnared during their set was thrown back into the audience, surging them home with an afterimage of the blue lights lingering behind their eyelids.
