Global Domination | Reviews

Recent updates

Recent discussions

Reviews

Ufomammut: Eve

05/08/10 || Khlysty

Slow music can be a pain in the ass. There’s a lot of slow bands out there who try and fail mightily to convey the proper mood that slow music must invoke to the listener. Mind you, this mood is not always the same: sometimes a band tries to invoke a sense of total, almost cosmic, misery and resignation. Other times, the bands go for existential dread. Other times, they try to convey a sense of THC-induced relaxation and, ehm, groove. And some other times they try to create a swirling vortex of impending doom (haha, yeah, doom bands trying to play for doom, yeah, haha…).

Most of the times, the bands fail. They turn to be too melodic for what they aim. Or, too slow; or too angular; or too derivative; or too whateverthefuckelse. Me, being a dronebone at heart, I have become quite picky when it comes to my doom. I’ve tried and rejected a gazillion bands that were supposed to be(come) the “next big thing” of the subgenre and never delivered their (supposed) potential. When it comes to doom, you can say that my pleasure centers have become extremely aware of bullshit artists, clumsy followers, or stupid experimentalists, and kick them out of my playlist in no time at all.

What all the above has to do with Ufomammut and their latest magnum opus, the minimally titled “Eve”? Well, it has simply to do that this Italian trio is one of the best proponents of doom metal today and that these guys should enjoy your unflagging adoration and display of, not only by buying their records, but by offering them presents, virgin girls to be sacrificed to the altars of heavosity, by sucking their cocks and by generally acting exactly as a faithful should act in front of god-like majesty.

Ufomammut, bizarre name aside, is one of them doom bands that don’t rely solely on the early Sabbath canon of slow-and-groovy downtuned riffs, but go a little bit earlier, into the land of psychedelic “heavy” bands, like Iron Butterfly or Blue Cheer, combining the grind of heavy slowness with touches of spaced-out psychotropic dementia, to create a sound that is both timeless and totally out there. Their music is slow, but it also contains a heavy dose of dynamics and melody and it stands out against a background that is usually boring, derivate and superficial.

Good ole Kampfar has already introduced GD readers to the majesty of Ufomammut, which makes me job easier here. See, I think that “Eve” is the band’s tour-de-force, a 45-minutes-long track (composed of five distinct but totally interconnected “movements”) that, supposedly, tells the story of the biblical First Woman and her defiance against God. The song is based around a constantly developing, expanding and retracting, cyclical minor chord riff, that ebbs and flows during the track, like some kind of cosmic oceanic tide.

The band creates valleys of stoned-out atmospherics, with tasteful keys and subdued guitar playing; but it also creates peaks of unbridled fury, with the guitar and bass roaring in a most awe-inspiring way, while the drums are always busy in a mid-tempo quasi-tribal tattoo, that reminds me most of Chris Hakius’ work in Dopesmoker. And, well, you know that comparing “Eve” to Sleep’s magnum opus would be unavoidable, since both works move inside the same framework, musically and inspirationally. But, while Sleep went for an all-encompassing, super-heavy sound, Ufomammut goes for more variation and details.

Anyway, to go back to the record at hand, movements III and IV focus on almost-constant heaviness, with the drums and bass snarling maliciously and propelling the song forward, while the guitar adds sludge and psychedelic fireworks in the proceedings. On the other hand, movements I, II and V fully display the band’s capability of working impressively on the dynamics and the tension-and-release songwriting “tricks”. All in all, “Eve” is one fucking good record, no, scratch that, is one fucking masterwork of heavosity and compositional genius. It offers not instant gratification, but patiently, insidiously crawls under the listener’s skin and into his mind, taking him to places that heavy music rarely dares to enter.

Bottom line is that “Eve” is prerequisite listen, one of the best records of the year and one incredibly captivating musical experience. And, of course, you should have it…

Information
Released: 2010
Label: Supernatural Cat
Website: www.ufomammut.com
Band
Poia: guitar
Urlo: bass, vocals
Vita: drums

Tracklist
01. Movement I
02. Movement II
03. Movement III
04. Movement IV
05. Movement V

Reviews