I'm all about sludge and bands with a good ear for repetition. Anyone who's paid attention to any article I've written is probably well aware of that. And it's been a while since I wrote about a band that sent us something that's all about that, too. So with that having been said, Italy's Ufomammut combine a sludge assault reminiscent of early Isis with subtle psychedelic flourishes that tie it all together into something unique. Their new album, Idolum, is out now, and I have to say, I'm really digging it.
“Stigma” opens the disc with an oddly timed guitar riff that builds and layers, eventually adding reverb-drenched organs and some of the most “musical” shouted vocals ever recorded. “Stardog” is where they assert that they were just getting started. A heavy downtuned guitar riff provides a backbone, while strange, barely audible samples and the shouts of the singer take stabs at it, only to all come to a complete stop, after which everything comes back together into a jam session vaguely reminiscent of White Light/White Heat era Velvet Underground, with insane drumming and noisy, squealing guitar that sound quite graceful together. “Hellectric” reminds me a lot of Isis on Celestial. With that really mathy backbone making what could otherwise sound like a slow song at the beginning sound evil as it builds into pile after pile of oceanic waves of sound. The bass drum-heavy breakdown and the subsequent build-up, however, are the defining moment of this song. On the other hand, “Ammonia,” despite sounding really evil, with lots of what sounds like flanger and reverb all over the place, with whispered vocals subtly audible underneath parts of it, actually is that slow song. It's got that sort of pseudo-”Egyptian” vibe going on, with guest-vocalist Rose Kemp lending her rather impressive voice to the track, and it works pretty damn well. And, of course, just because it's slow doesn't mean it doesn't build up into into a heavy psychedelic stoner jam! Granted, it doesn't pick up a lot of speed, but it'll still melt your eardrums if you play it too loud. What more could you ask for? The next track, “Nero,” just kinda seems like a logical progression from that. An 8-minute dirge that instantly cranks the heaviness, but then dwells on that alone without worrying about the speed too much. Once again, what I like about this is how the vocals seem to exist solely for the purpose of cutting through all the sludge being laid down by the instruments. The psyched-out breakdown at the end is about as majestic as that sort of thing gets. With all that slow noodling, the full-on aggression of “Destroyer” is pretty welcome when it shows up. The psychedelia of the past couple tracks is still there, too, channeled into spacey breakdowns throughout. The last track, “Void/Elephantom,” actually two tracks tied together by a meandering, overly long middle bit is probably what I like least on here. The tracks themselves are good. And honestly, if I was listening to this on vinyl, I'd probably be a lot more forgiving, just because it is really hard to take a track this long when you have a music library sitting in front of you and you could change the song at the push of a button. But, unfortunately, that's how the vast majority of listeners are going to hear this, and I'd be willing to bet a lot of them are probably going to skip about half the track every listen after the first, if they don't skip it altogether. “Void” opens with a slow space rock thing with sung vocals buried under it. Eventually it gets heavy, and then it breaks down. Then it's a meandering ambient keyboard thing for about 15 minutes. The length of it is kind of overboard, and it could've used some trimming. Toward the end of it, samples start coming in and “Elephantom” starts up. It's a heavy thing, with lots of really cool samples and a sort of “jammy” vibe and a looser feel than most of the rest of the album.
This
album is out now, it's damn solid and worth a listen, and these guys
have a European tour coming up in November. Keep watching their
website for details on that. They sound like they'd be pretty sweet
live. The album is on CD and there's a limited edition double-LP for all you vinyl geeks. The transparent sold out, and as of this writing, there's about 200 copies of the black left; it goes for 40 Euros, so if you've got a lot of cash lying around to spend on records, and you like what you hear, you might be interested in that. The packaging is definitely pretty top-notch.
-Soup
