Album Review: Acid Mammoth - Caravan
Reviewed by Paul Hutchings
It was only in January 2020 that Greek doom merchants Acid Mammoth released their second album, ‘Under Acid Hoof’. It was a thick, sludgy affair with riffs so heavy they were buried deep in the earth’s core. Five songs of pounding psychedelic, stoner doom that varied in length but not in crushing depth.
Album number three and the band’s fourth release for Heavy Psych Sounds Records has been recorded totally in lockdown and reflects the band’s mood in the current times. The songs are dark, long and take the listener on a deep and troubling journey.
The Athenians have continued to craft their sound and taken it to a higher level. The meandering ‘Beserker’ that opens the album sees the guitars of father and son duo of Chris Babalis Sr and Jr join forces once more to weave their magic in mesmerising style. Immersing their sound thoroughly into doom, they cross the ‘Psychedelic Wasteland’, huge fuzzy riffs and an engine room that hums combing at a lumbering, almost glacial pace. The song is massive, the guitar solos drift on the air as the song slowly moves forward.
Like many bands of this genre, the challenge is to maintain the interest during lengthy tracks that repeat and generally follow a similar blueprint from start to finish. That Acid Mammoth manage to do that with their Sabbath heavy riffing is a testimony to the sheer effort that the band commit. Chris Babalis Jr’s vocals are hypnotic, swirling about the heady mix which threatens to envelop and consume. No more so that on the 11-minute title track that pounds and pummels with giant, thumping riffs that burst the blood vessels in the brain. The mesmerising vocals bewitch as the driving doom swirls around you.
Acid Mammoth maintain their formula throughout ‘Caravan’ but have improved and tweaked their style to create an engrossing third long player, which continues to provide ample evidence that this is a band whose stock is continuing to rise.
