Now, right at the outset, |Monk has to hold his hands up and declare that he’s not a massive fan of entirely instrumental albums. They’re not the sort of thing he tends to sit down and listen to out of choice. Like classical music, he tends to view them as background soundtracks to other aspects of life, such as researching his book, because your concentration on such matters is not interrupted by having to do the same in regard to lyrics and meanings. Now, this is in no way intended to decry or denigrate the musicians involved, as there are numerous fantastic rock and metal instrumentalists, too many to name in this already over-long intro, who have chosen not to add vocals to their material, and to varying degrees of success: there are many times when the big bad boss has listened to a purely instrumental track and thought “that could do with a big fuck-off scream right there…”