MAMMOTH VOLUME – Raised Up By Witches
Release Date: 23rd August 2024
Label: Blues Funeral Recordings
Bandcamp
Genre: Stoner Rock, Progressive Rock.
FFO: Solar Mantra, All Souls, Protoplanet, Elephant Groove, Rush.
Review By: Paul Franklin
Despite the claims of Alanis Morrisette, rain on your wedding day is not ironic, that’s just shit weather. Finding 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife is not ironic, that’s just bad planning combined with a dangerously obsessive compulsion for oval shaped eating implements. What is ironic is the term ‘progressive rock’, when (to these unattended ears at least) it sounds like a lot of these band’s sound hasn’t progressed very much at all from the genre’s conception back in the late sixties.
Mammoth Volume make claims that their latest release Raised Up By Witches doesn’t fall into this trap by virtue of the fact that it combines elements of stoner rock – Scissor Bill and Diablo III: Faces In The Water the two strongest examples. Although the former could do with losing the middle ‘gentle’ section which interups the groove and the later undermines its Sabbath vibe with some intrusive ‘plinky plonky’ bits.
In reality these elements seem to be little more than token gestures that get in the way of the band’s burning desire to indulge in an orgy of organs and flutes (shudder!) on tracks, that with titles such asThe Battle of Lightwedge and Cult of Eneera, are the perfect accompaniment to a weekend LARPing in the woods dressed up as a pound shop Gandalf.
The band says: “Raised Up By Witches was meant as a themed album but, …. we started to tell ourselves that Mammoth Volume is really whatever we record…… In the end, it turned into something completely different than planned”. The more you listen, the more you wish they had stuck to the plan. Instead, it feels like each member decides to take a different route through the musical maze and ends up getting lost and having to be rescued by the guide in the peaked cap, carrying the big ‘Follow Me’ sign.
(2 / 5)
