Animals As Leaders – Monomyth

Animals As Leaders released their first song in five years in 2021, accompanied by an eerie music video. “Monomyth” is progressive and narrative, all while remaining lyric-less. On the song, founder and guitarist Tosin Abasi stated, “Monomyth is part fever dream, part ritual. Its imagery represents man's ceaseless attempts to translate transcendent ideas into movement. The conflation of struggle with meaning.” He continues, “Pain with significance. The ultimate failure of distilling perceived patterns in the world into knowledge.”

The music video features a group of men performing an ominous interpretive dance. Directed by Telavaya Reynolds, it perfectly mirrors the essence of “Monomyth,” a narrative driven by everything but words. The bald men’s movements align with the pace of the ever-evolving guitar parts before standing completely frozen at the end.

“Monomyth” went on to achieve significant acclaim and was elected to place in the top 20 best metal songs of 2021 by Loudwire. JPEGMafia also sampled the track in his song “END CREDITS!,” exposing Animals As Leaders to a brand-new audience.