Mona Lisa Override doesn’t stick to one mode. Some songs come fast and jagged, built to sound like a riot spilling into the street. Others slow down, lean into melody, and use irony or satire to carry the weight of critique. Across their debut album, you can move from the blunt force of God, Guns & Algorithms to the sardonic sneer of Orange Crown, the slow suffocation of 404 Future Not Found, or the unsettling imagery of The Yellow Wallpaper, a song based on the iconic short story of feminist writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

 

The four members came from East Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Detroit and formed the band in Los Angeles. What ties it together is not a single sound but a stance, the refusal to polish or soften. Punk is the base language, and it runs through cyberpunk textures, political protest, feminist anger, and quieter passages that linger after the noise fades. The aim is not to be one-dimensional, but to show how protest can sound now, sometimes screamed, sometimes sung, but always cutting.