Song Review:: i-dle: Mono

• Release date: 2026 January 27

• Album tracklist: Mono (feat. ska water)

• Album runtime: 3 minutes

 So, they got a music show win (actually several, but there only needs to be one), which means that I have to kick my butt into gear and get this review written. It's not that I didn't want to write this, nor that I didn't think this would get at least a win, but I also tend to follow my soul's whimsy to give songs the attention they deserve. It does mean that sometimes songs slip through the cracks (which is why I have that spot for the regular reviews in The Form, which you can always submit a song to do a regular review for, even if the song hasn't come out yet).

This is a club song without being one of the whipped into a frenzy kind, which means that the beat is very solid and present, but there's also very little variation to it. It's got one spot where it goes more mystical, but it doesn't last long before the best returns. The meaningful variation is very low here, although thank goodness for the softening bit during what might be a bridge and then right at the end. 

The message of the song, I'm down with. The sound of the vocals are unpleasantly bland and restrained, though the bridge does get a nice new texture to it at the end. I was hoping we'd gotten past the era of the milquetoast, and it's doubly disappointing from this particular group. The only consolidation is that it's not a full milquetoast song because most of that is held to the vocals. I love Cream of Wheat (because I am an 80 year old woman in my soul). But I would never eat it straight out of the saucepan because I need the brown sugar. I need the banana. I need the extra milk. And while the instrumental does add some brown sugar to the song, it's not nearly enough. It's satisfying in the warm and filling way, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't make me hum and happy wiggle in delight. 

The music video is actually an art film, which isn't great necessarily because it's a subcategory of the vibes and visuals music video that I'm generally not overly fond of, but it's also a very specific subcategory that while it doesn't give me the dopamine boost I want, it's got enough bold, clear choices that the analytical and critical part of my brain is happy to step in instead because this is catnip to it. The very pointed use of color, use of a pen (pencil? the swinging doohickey reminds me of a pen nib) as a pendulum, but then once you take a step back, you realize that the "randomness" was actually making a hidden design the whole time, you just had to be willing to step away to see it. This is very well done.