Camper Van Beethoven's Greg Lisher on guitar, Victor Krummenacher on bass, and Chris Pedersen on drums initiated Monks of Doom strictly as an auxiliary endeavor during 1985. The trio evolved into a primary concern once David Lowery, later the founder of Cracker, departed Camper Van Beethoven after the 1989 release Key Lime Pie. Ophelias guitarist David Immergluck then completed the roster that entered the studio to cut the band's debut, the film soundtrack Breakfast on the Beach of Deception (1998, Pitch-a-Tent). Although the project never replicated the radio-friendly appeal that placed Camper Van Beethoven regularly on pop charts, Monks of Doom sustained a stream of inventive, irreverent, and exploratory recordings that evoked the sensibility of early-'70s pop experimentalists Frank Zappa and Syd Barrett. Meridian, issued on Baited Breath in 1991, and Forgery, released by IRS in 1992, both display the group's unbounded stylistic blend, folding in elements of world music alongside jazzy guitar lines. The 1992 10" picture disc The Insect God, issued by C/Z Records, extends the same exploratory impulse through a compact rock-opera treatment of Edward Gorey's The Insect God, while the CD edition appends a bonus track: a version of Zappa's "Who Are the Brain Police?" The final IRS album, 1993's Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company, marked the last official group statement, even as several members have sustained collaborative work across additional projects.
