UFOMAMMUT

— First review of this album —

Cheers for such a powerfully distorted, dissected sound world! Happy to have a listen to UFOMAMMUT's latest ep "Crookhead'' in late 2023, that perfectly encourages us under another tough situation all over the world. Their heavy- metallic riffs and wonderfully wandering melodic lines are more energetic and more dissonant than usual and drive us into comfort and madness. Sticky, repetitive psychic phrases remind us of high-dimensional probability. From the beginning of 2024 we've got some distressing news but this magnificent ep has come up to us for reassurance and emboldenment.

The first texture of the titled track "Crookhead" sounds quite explosive and bombastic enough to notify us they have an attitude and intention to launch excessive powerful sound storms. A sudden melodic / rhythmic shift to slowdown sounds like another dark cloudy sky would drop to us. Quirky depressive calmness in the middle scene is also significant and meaningful and could make us anticipate our prognosis in the unstable circumstances. However the last spurt drenched in heavy fuzzy muddy freaky insanity is pretty impulsive and impressive.

"Supernova" is, anyway, a brilliant splashing song like a gemstone. Veiled in a dark black atmosphere but their perverse chorus is charming. The latter part consists of slimy effective negative sound masses, which can be called as awesome creations by one of authentic Italian Exp / Post Metallic agents. Listen carefully to their last shout without any breath. "Vibrhate" is a short, settled, and stabilized track filled with downer shoegaze but uplifting aromas. This 3 and half minute claim gives us another definite confidence that we will get enthusiastic energy of 'vibrhancy'. Enjoy such a magnificent quarter an hour produced by UFOMAMMUT.

What a fruitful sound combination. Their sound combination of metallic heaviness, spacey psychedelia, lyrical quietness, and dissonant bitterness, should be incredibly balanced as well. We UFOMAMMUT fans had been looking forward to the release of "Fenice" that finally came in May. This brilliant souvenir will encourage us, who have been getting disappointed and depressed by such a terrible pandemic situation. The sleeve pic is drastically psycho- hysterical and bombastically extraordinary but at the same time appeals to us energetically. The content is deep, sticky, kinky and thrashing, but simultaneously has such a potential to empower and stimulate us.

Their massive tension explodes from the beginning of the first shot "Duat" - infernal electro-attacks via Urlo's synthesizer should be crucial. Cracked psychopathic stoner space passages in the middle part are also comfortable, as if they might look through our brain perfectly. We cannot feel long nor lengthy regardless of the longest stuff in the album. First of all a magnificent booster shot. "Kepherer", one of the shortest tracks, is kinda heterogeneity in this creation. Surrealistic ambience plus sophisticated inorganic electronica takes us into mystic meditation. But we have no time to stabilize ourselves, of course. The third "Psychostasia", one of my favourite tracks, involves tranquil spacey vibes and profound psychedelic darkness. Why can we avoid mentioning this as such another-dimensional beauty? The latter uptempo heavy garage-y movements with dramatic sound distortion completely shake our inner mind up.

Enjoy another meditative fantasy "Metamorphoenix", where we could be surprised and shocked at their weird calmness and unstable stability. This kind of drone should be good for us to take a rest, but this moment full of distortion beneath the soundscape gives us another palpitation. The following "Pyramind" can be called as a matured mixture of quirkiness, quietness, darkness, politeness ... especially in the latter phase. Quite heavy and painful but dramatic and enthusiastic, as well as the former loudly explosive dissonance, isn't it? The last run "Empyros" is the gold standard of their extreme mindset. All of their positive sound appearance can be launched only for two and half minutes. It's wonderful that the cool and impressive aftertaste be left behind us. We will be happy to get such a fascinating creativity and mysterious melodic and rhythmic hybridization.

[Originally published at The Progressive Aspect]

This is a review of Ufomammut's latest album, Fenice, but I'm going to begin by writing about an earlier one. That might seem a strange thing to do, but it feels right for me. My descent into the dark and doomy world of the Italian trio was by way of their 2015 album, Ecate. Coming after a double album released in two parts, Ecate managed to reunite a divided fanbase, who saw it as either a return to form, or a continuation of form, after Oro. Oro is certainly more celebrated now, retrospectively, than it was at the time, where many fans were not so favourable in their reception of it. In the case of the new album, rather than a rebirth of inspiration as perceived by the fans, Fenice is a rebirth of inspiration as perceived by the band. The cover art shows the titular Fenice (Italian for phoenix), and is easily the most gorgeous cover art I've come across so far this year. I love it! But hold on, isn't it also very similar to the cover art for Ecate? It really is, and so I can't help comparing this new album to my first and, until now, my favourite Ufomammut album.

While Ecate is an album that portrays the aspects and characteristics of the Greek goddess Hecate, the cover art always made me wonder if Ufomammut were recognising that many scholars believe the Greek Hecate had her origins in the Egyptian Heqet, who was a goddess of birth and re-birth, and a guide of the Underworld. Hecate, like Heqet, is a symbolic gateway between the worlds of the living, the deified and the dead. The cover art for Ecate, though, evokes a more Egyptian vibe than Greek, with its pyramid form which, with several repeated motifs, appears again for the cover art for Fenice. And the song titles, as well as the cover art, now imply that it is Egyptian mythology that is the main inspiration. Before I had even listened to a note, I was already captivated and entranced by the vivid and colourful cover art that was so reminiscent to me of Ecate, and looking at the song list merely had me even more excited to hear what the band had in store ? particularly when they have named the album after the phoenix, and explicitly stated it is a representation of the rebirth the band feels it has undergone.

Often called a sludge or doom band, Ufomammut has always been so much more than that, with healthy dollops of experimental drone, psychedelia, post- and noise-rock added to their pulverising heaviness. You may as well add industrial to that mix, as I've read comparisons before to bands such as Ministry and Nine Inch Nails. And while Ecate and the album that followed it, 8, opened with the shattering intensity and momentum the band are so much the masters of, Fenice's opening number, Duat, is more meditative than destructive. Ufomammut have long been masters of dynamics, atmosphere and ambience (and you'll often see their more spacey moments compared to Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream or Hawkwind), but even so, Duat surprises by just how expansive and minimal its opening sounds are. Oro, for all its differences, moved into a more familiar and dense bone-crushing wall of sound after its ambient opening. Yet, with Duat, even when the riffs crash in, they are full of space. Space as a void, and space as otherworldly. Or, perhaps, underworldly, given than Duat is the Egyptian underworld.

What is nice about the track, though, is that it really does convey the difference between the idea of the Egyptian underworld, and the Classical underworld. This sounds nothing like Plouton from Ecate, and nor should it. Despite Egyptian and Classical mythology sharing a lot of similar concepts, their underworlds were very different. The Egyptian underworld was where souls could be reborn. The only punishment after death was if you were judged not to be worthy of rebirth. The Duat was also where the sun god, Ra, passed through every night, and once more I'm drawn back to comparing Fenice to Ecate, for Kheperer reminds me very much of Ecate's Chaosecret. And yet, as with Duat and Plouton, it is very different. Every night in Duat, Ra battled Apep, the personification of Chaos. Each day the Sun was reborn from nothingness, (re)created from nothingness, the primordial void, chaos. Sometimes seen as a solar deity of his own, and sometimes as an aspect of Ra, Kheperer was god of the morning sun, and of resurrection. So while Kheperer is reminiscent of Chaosecret, it is less threatening and malign. (Interestingly where Duat is long, and Plouton short; Kheperer is long, and Chaosecret short. I find that kind of cool.)

Kheperer takes us to Psychostasia - the weighing of souls. And while a Greek word is used for the title, no doubt we are meant to be thinking of the weighing of a dead person's heart against a feather, overseen by Anubis. If the heart was lighter or balanced with the feather, then the dead would be presented to Osiris, who took them to be reborn. If the heart was heavier than the feather, then it was devoured by Ammut (and who can't be tickled by the similarity of that goddess's name to that of the band), and the soul was permanently destroyed and denied resurrection or immortality. As such there is a great deal of tension as Psychostasia begins, which is quite appropriate when one's life is literally hanging in the balance. But at its heaviest it is triumphant and jubilant, and there is no doubt that this heart has passed the test. Even though the track has vocals, it needs none (and, as is so often the case with Ufomammut, they are so far back in the mix as to be largely unintelligible anyway), and conveys the mood and imagery amazingly and beautifully. I realise I'm not writing too much about how the album sounds, but the Bandcamp page does such a good job of doing that, that I don't really feel I would be adding much in trying to describe it myself. So mood and imagery is where I'm at.

With that, it is now time for rebirth, and suitably the following track is Metamorphoenix. A clever play on words, although this is more metempsychosis than metamorphosis. And, of course, as we are in Ancient Egypt, the phoenix is Bennu - the ancient god of the sun, creation, rebirth, and immortality, that developed into the phoenix of Greek mythology. Like the phoenix, Bennu would periodically renew himself, and "rise in brilliance". As for brilliance, well Pyramind simply shines as a slab of Ufomammut heaviness as only they do. It's worth pointing out here that Fenice is, as Ecate was, six components of one whole. But this album far surpasses Ecate in that regard, and plays more like Eve, as one long track with recurring themes and rhythms, albeit presented in different forms. There is, for example, the briefest gap between Pyramind and Empyros, but blink and you'd miss it, and could easily think you were still listening to the same track. With Empyros being Ancient Greek for "on fire", this is an unsurprisingly incendiary final number. Ladies and gentleman, Ufomammut announce their rejuvenation. The band is dead. Long live the band.

— First review of this album —

How fresh and fruity this live album recorded a decade before is. As the title says "Eve Live At Roadburn 2011" was performed on stage at Roadburn in 2011 because their concept album "Eve" was appreciated as "Album Of The Year" in a poll by Roadburn Festival visitors. UFOMAMMUT played complete "Eve" in a perfect manner, that finally saw the light as a live album after a decade - in March 2021. They always launch profound stoner rock explanations with experimental hints in every single creation, and their strong intention and policy should be detected in this album too. Additionally, there is definitely not only darkness or heaviness but also something cheerful around the gig material. Yes just as a Krautrock Giant EILIFF played more enthusiastically and impressively on stage of "Close Encounters With Their Third One" than in their studio-based creations, UFOMAMMUT's performance in this album sounds more and more vivid, vivacious, and energetic at least for me (of course their studio one is excellent really though). We can drastically hear a grand unification and integration between the artist and the audience through this opus.

They never betray our expectations. From the departure "Stigmata" they discharge downtempo metallic distortion full of dark atmosphere and psychedelic ambience 'at full throttle'. Melodic patterns are quite simple and repetitive as well but every single phrase has incredible power and persuasion, that the audience would have got constantly immersed in from the start until the finish. Such a critical sound repetition in the latter part is also addictive. We can notice their methodological approaches for absorbing the audience so distinctly. The suite "Eve" is beyond expression. In "Part I" let us get drenched in psychic noise dizziness on the first touch. In the middle, crucial bluesy indepth tension attacks directly to us. The last part involves crazy dissonance as if we would have been drowned beneath their audible mud. "Part II" sounds like an infernal shout via the shoegaze shower. Our inner brain should be sanitized badly by their craziness like Bogzilla meets Space Rock. On the contrary, kinda slightly uptempo weirdness can be enjoyed in "Part III" even under a tough current situation ... followed by "Part IV" filled with mysterious melodic correlation to another dimension. "Part V" is the last run aka their 'stoner rock ultima' flooded with psychedelic movements and delicious auditory dissection.

Sounds like the audience would have got a bit overwhelmed but much amazed until the very last performance "God" (what a brave entitlement indeed) with excessive explosive fuel. Basically the combinations of simple (but deadly poisonous) lines gradually invade our stomach deeply.

Forgive me for mentioning my personal issue but I've done a wine tasting / winery tour in North Italy a while before. A lot of bottles of Italian wine are quite favourable and acceptable, especially Piemonte red wine produced in the wet, foggy air (Nebbia in Italian) is one of my faves really. Anyway, we experimental rock fans cannot avoid such a world- class Italian Experimental / Post-Metal combo UFOMAMMUT hailing from Tortona (Piemonte) who play as if they were veiled in deep "Nebbia". "Ecate" has been released as their seventh full-length album flooded with powerful, aggressive, and violent sound exudation. On the contrary, I'm afraid if it's only me who can feel friendly to their soundscape, as Italian sense of humour. (Any opinions?)

Their foggy, fuzzy, and sludge-y metal sound is compiled in the first track "Somnium". Electronic infernal confusion, heavy and deep downtempo abyss, smell of danger arising beneath the sun ... no delightful impression you cannot grab out via the whole track. But for me, sounds like they drive us into sorta pleasant madness. Repetitive riffs of muddy water and bombastic shoegaze tastes of melody, both are their perfect method to knock us down completely, like sweet but addictive flavour of Piemonte wine. ON the other hand, we can more easily accept the following song "Plouton" as a straight, strict hardcore post metal one. Plus, another sound strategy of theirs can be heard in "Revelation" where we can touch more hallucinogenic atmosphere just like electro-filled Krautrock.

Please let me say "Temple" should be one of the most offensive but simultaneously depressive tracks. Explosive melodic grandeur is broken and fixed again and again, like our whole real life. Sounds like they might say "it would be quite tough to live full of darkness but mind you, something would happen anytime anywhere" ... at least for me. This mysterious texture can be felt in the last track "Daemons". In the former part more uptempo earachy clusters of tone must break our inner heart in pieces but the last scene is incredibly beautiful enough to give permission for us to make it again. Such a delight could be called as Italian taste of honey I imagine? Quite mystic obvious to encourage us vigorously.

First of all let me say thanks to my progmate Eetu for notifying me of such a fantastic combo. UFOMAMMUT are one of experimental acts in the Sludge Metal scene (that I'm not familiar with, actually). Their distorted, roughly dissected sounds remind me of the similarity to Ministry ('Psalm 88' is one of my faves), but their texture characteristic is not simple at all. Some complex rhythmic bases, weird electronic waves, and comfortable chorus and harmony amongst deep, harsh phrases should add glamour to their style itself. Very innovative are these addictive charms and vibes, which we might get easily immersed in. Imagine the audience and they both should be synchronized and well-unified on and in front of stage at a gig, too.

They have grabbed and digested completely various elements - doom, death, psychedelic, stoner, electronic, and so on. Crazy impressive are also melodic / rhythmic variations - convoluted melodic quirkiness, horrible quiet moments, or electronic solvent, based upon massive deformation of soundgarden. Musically offensive attitude against (for?) the audience might be heard in general really, but their colourful play / sound essence can be blended with experimental sludge metal style, and needless to say, be well- matured. Flowery flavour here and there in a strong heavy vision ' it's not bad.

One of sludge metal's most underrated bands release a soundtrack for giant mammoths trudging through space.

Ufomammut have been known as one of the more experimental bands in the sludge metal scene and generally add a thicker dose of psychedelic atmosphere than others, which makes them stand out quite a bit in the genre, considering that a lot of sludge bands simply churn out bland , uninspired Black Sabbath riffs album after album. This band gives its listeners deep, dreamy, heavy soundscapes to get lost in without sacrificing the strong riff-based structure that typically defines the sludge metal genre.

But, for the most part, Oro: Opus Primium is a lot more focused on psychedelic atmosphere, much like Eve was, as opposed to their heavier metalheaded albums like Snailking. This album in particular might be their slowest to date -- each song features heavy, ultra-fuzzy stoner rock riffs that move at a mammoth's crawl towards the finish line, though each track seems to almost never end, but that's mostly because this whole album runs together as a single 51-minute supreme sludgy psych epic.

Maybe not entirely retro, but a lot of the psychedelic element in this album is created by pseudo old school synthesizers and sequencers that personally remind me of music by the original Berlin school masters of the 1970s. Intermittent electronic buzzing and occasional ambient washes successfully enhance the profound drugginess of this music. As for the guitars and bass, the expected extreme fuzzy distortion is what you'll hear, but it somehow seems a bit more dense and oppressive than similar distortion utilized by most sludge metal contemporaries. The bass especially is low enough to rattle your brain if listened to on speakers loud enough or with quality headphones.

The compositions are entirely instrumental and extremely slow. This is definitely not running or exercise music at all, but rather something to lie down and relax while listening to, as to absorb the full metallic spacial impact that Ufomammut have to offer. There are no choruses, no real verses, and probably no familiar structure other than what could be considered as general post-rock structure in that each track starts off one way and slowly builds to a powerful climax or otherwise progressive endpoint. Out of all of the Ufomammut albums I've listened to, Oro: Opus Primium is probably one of their least accessible but, at the same time, deepest album. There are so many new sounds to be discovered in each slow-burning and deceptively simple movements upon each consecutive listen. I'm positive that most fans of sludge metal will probably enjoy this if they don't mind giving some serious patience to the listening process, but I'd be willing to bet that a lot of old school psychedelic rock fans might enjoy this just as much.

A mesmerizing, absorbing and bizarre trip that converges into even ore bizarre and hypnotizing metal.

Drone, stoner, sludge, post, whatever metal you want, Ufomammut delivers a grand piece consisting of one song divided into 5 parts.

Part 1: somewhat catchy, introducing the song. 9/10 Part 2: cacophonous, haunting and trying to consume your soul. 8/10 Part 3: aggressive, what I'd call the "main theme". 10/10 Part 4: a kind of break with less wall-of-sound, totally atmospheric and mesmerizing. 10/10 Part 5: the grand finale, reprising the whole album, and entering some new cool parts. 10/10

Anyway, a true stoner/sludge/doom/post metal album, 44 minutes of pure confusion, bizarre chaos, and no-lyrics brain melting.

10/10

Thrilling release, it calms and smash to pieces.

This Italian band seems to be at their best with this amazing album. Doom metal, drone, stoner rock are only a few genres which you can mention hearing the newest album "Eve".

Flowing music, increasing atmosphere so you can feel like flying in darkness. Song structure let us experience the whole album like one solid history with peaks and downs. Fly by night, Amazing flight. Metal elements are obvious but noit demonstrative, Album as whole has a lot dramatic psychodelic moments like synths or background vocals which fit absolutely good to the sound of the heavy doom guitar.

I feel its growing in me, But for the moment i give strong 4 and a half stars. Strong recommendation for fans of Post rock & metal

Ufomammut is a space doom metal group that walks on similar paths with groups like Yob, Sleep or Middian. "Idolum" is a representative gathering of hypnotizing, heavy instrumental pieces with a strong psychedelic feeling and passages that gradually develop and form in a repetitive manner. Low tuned guitars and basses embelished with keyboards and other soundscape-creating electronic effects , mid and slow tempos, sung atmospheric parts with no actual lyrics and a thick, solid sound that flows like lava. What we have here is not a record for every progressive rock ear though. I guess that someone has to be somehow familiar with the doom or stoner metal sound or, at least, to be in the mood of listening to a music that is moving on in chant-like heavy and slow repetitions. No solos, no technique demonstrations, no significant rhythm changes or odd beats. A kind of music that someone would pick as background for a documentary on deserts, volcanos or Saturn's surface.