Monarch

A monarch is the sovereign head of state in a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the most and highest authority in the state or others may wield that power on behalf of the monarch. Typically a monarch either personally inherits the lawful right to exercise the state's sovereign rights (often referred to as the throne or the crown) or is selected by an established process from a family or cohort eligible to provide the nation's monarch. Alternatively, an individual may become monarch by conquest, acclamation or a combination of means. A monarch usually reigns for life or until abdication. If a young child is crowned the monarch, a Regent is often appointed to govern until the monarch reaches the requisite adult age to rule. Monarchs' actual powers vary from one monarchy to another and in different eras; on one extreme, they may be autocrats (absolute monarchy) wielding genuine sovereignty; on the other they may be ceremonial heads of state who exercise little or no power or only reserve powers, with actual authority vested in a parliament or other body (constitutional monarchy).

Monarch (band)

Monarch, in the US often written Monarch!, is a French drone doom band.

History

The band was founded in 2002 in Bayonne, France. In 2005, they released their debut, a double CD with three tracks. Since then the band have released new albums almost annually; additionally, they have also released various EPs, singles and splits with Moss, the Grey Daturas and Elysiüm. Monarch have released with various labels, mainly with the Spanish Throne Records and have recently signed with US label At A Loss Recordings that will release their new record, Omens. Monarch have toured frequently outside France; in the beginning of 2010 they played alongside Wolves in the Throne Room in Australia, and 2010/2011 Monarch toured North America, Japan and Australia.

Music

The band states doom metal and sludge metal bands like Black Sabbath, Noothgrush, Corrupted, Burning Witch and The Melvins as main influences, but emphasizes with the note "but mainly Black Sabbath" the special importance of the classic metal band. Their 2010 album stresses this through its title, "Sabbat Noir", French for Black Sabbath. Eduardo Rivadavia from Allmusic sees their sound as similar to drone metal like Khanate and Rigor Sardonicous, but often harsher. British magazine Rock-A-Rolla considers the band to be rooted in modern doom metal. Monarch have also shown appreciation and claim to be influenced by Norwegian black metal band Darkthrone, and several D-beat bands such as Discharge, Disclose and Aghast; and covered songs by Turbonegro and Discharge, among others.

Mercury Monarch

The Mercury Monarch is a compactautomobile that was manufactured by Mercury from 1975 to 1980. Released in the model year 1975, the Monarch was a badge-engineered version of the Ford Granada which was identical save for the grille, taillights and some interior and exterior trim. A total of 575,567 Monarchs were produced during this time period. For 1981, the Granada was replaced with a smaller version based on Ford's Fox platform, and the Mercury version took the Cougar name.

Monarch (Ford of Canada brand)

Monarch was first used by Ford of Canada from 1946 to 1957 and from 1959 to 1961. As such it was used as a standalone brand name, that used Mercury automobiles, trimmed specifically for the Canadian markets. This was done to give Ford dealers a product to sell in the medium-price field. This was typical practice in the Canadian market, where smaller towns might have only a single dealer who was expected to offer a full range of products in various price classes. The Monarch was dropped for 1958 when the Edsel was introduced, but the poor acceptance of the Edsel led Ford to reintroduce Monarch for 1959. With a drop in medium-priced vehicle sales in the early 1960s, and the introduction of the similarly priced Ford Galaxie, the Monarch was dropped after the 1961 model year.