Live Review: Acid Mammoth – Birmingham

Midway through a four-day stint around the UK, Greek doom titans Acid Mammoth took to Birmingham on a warm Saturday night on the canalside, armed with towering amps, fuzz pedals and The Riff to deliver a night of heaviness at The Flapper. With Earthcaster and The Zealous Chieftains in support, gig-goers were very much treated to a night of sonic excess. With three bands flying the flag for what Ozzy Osbourne and his bandmates had begun over fifty years ago, barely a month after his passing in the city that he first called home, Birmingham came out in force to fill out the gig room, creating an atmosphere even before the first notes were struck.

North East Scotland’s Earthcaster, in the main support slot, entertained the room for half an hour with old-school heavy rock to bang your heads to, with both guitarists and the bassist sharing vocal duties. Their bluesy riffs and ventures into psychedelic jams transported Birmingham into a sweaty, 1970s rock bar, though with more modern stoner and doom influences - and even some folk melodies - lurking within. Interacting with the audience with a gritty charm, they commanded the stage and showed their chops with some fantastic individual drum and lead guitar work. Earthcaster were a lot of fun tonight; let’s hope we see more of them down this way soon.

Eventually, Athens quartet Acid Mammoth took to the stage. As the first notes began to ring out, The Flapper grew thick with heads nodding and bodies swaying, the hazy atmosphere tightening its grip as the band’s colossal sound rolled in. It was gloomy, it was heavy, it worshipped Sabbath, and it put the whole room under its spell. The dark, hypnotic riffs within ‘Supersonic Megafauna Collision’ and ‘Tree of Woe’ seeped into every corner of the room early on in the set, with Chris Babalis Jr’s melodic, Ozzy-inspired singing carrying each vocal line with class and conviction, while Chris Babalis Sr stood to his right, faithfully ripping guitar leads that served the songs just as needed, cutting wonderfully through the auditory haze. The entire band’s chemistry as performers and songwriters was apparent, giving their songs real weight in the live setting.

Towards the end, after a series of crushing slower tracks, the upbeat ‘Them!’ injected a fresh surge of energy into the audience as its swaggering groove grabbed the crowd into a chokehold. The cleverly-titled closer ‘Jack The Riffer’ - also from the excellent ‘Under Acid Hoof’ LP - then brought the night into a towering finale as heads were shaken for one last time this evening. The Flapper’s intimate size, coupled with a busy turnout, felt like the ideal place to see a band like Acid Mammoth burst eardrums and shake venue foundations on a UK headline tour. They know they don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but their iron grip on slow tempos, their knack for dark, dismal melodies, and their timeless devotion to the riff is what stands them tall as one of Europe’s leading doom outfits.