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Released on August 31, 2015 via Independent
Mammoth Salmon‘s debut release Call of the Mammoth was an enjoyable affair in that it delivered a set of songs which showed the different strengths of the band. It was hardly ground-breaking stuff, even in the doom genre, but cast its own shadow long enough to warrant repeated listens. Moving from sludge to funeral doom in the space of five songs the flow was a bit disjointed, but set out the band’s stall.
And so now we have follow up Last Vestige of Humanity and on the evidence of opening track ‘Ad Nauseam’ you may not be overly impressed with their progression. A bruised sludge song which lurches from the speakers, it is something of a red herring as you soon discover on ‘Acid Casualty’, the first of a series of epic doomed out songs.
Taking their cue from ‘Eulogy’ on their last release, they explore a slower, heavier sound, which is infused with the blues to the extent that at times they sound like a slowed down Black Sabbath record. It’s a generic influence but here Mammoth Salmon seem to not only ape that heavy sound, but to tap into the very essence of what made that band great.
It’s all about the riffs here and these are riffs that, whilst not totally original, slam down like a thudding sledgehammer in perpetual monotony. Colouring this are brief melodic interludes, which stick to a blues pattern, but are all the more stronger for it. The title track fares well from this approach although it does seem to drag on after a while.
This feeling of dragging on pervades the whole album, but that is because as we progress, the music seems to get slower and slower. Maybe it’s the heaviness of the whole thing, but it seems as if Mammoth Salmon are coming to a halt. It would be simpler to use a metaphor for the great, lumbering beasts coming to rest, but that would sort of give away what this album sounds like.
It’s certainly impressive to see Mammoth Salmon evolve into the band they are now and by de-constructing the doom sound and stripping it right back to its bare essentials, they are reaping a slow harvest. The album does lack variety in that each song does tend to sound the same and moments such as ‘Memoriam’ do drag a bit, but given that the music they create is not really one for brightening up a Summer’s day you have to take the rough with the smooth. They’re a fine band this lot and deserve your attention. This is a band doing doom as it should be done and a remarkable improvement on an already enjoyable debut release.
