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Released on September 30, 2016 via New Heavy Sounds
The fabulously attention grabbing named Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard return with a second album to be released a mere 9 months after their debut Noeth AC Anoeth. A band consisting of members who collectively have immensely diverse and intriguing musical tastes, as well as a wide range of interests in geography, art and history. It could be argued, or at least worth pondering, if eclectic influenced groups are the most interesting and better equipped to carve out their own niche amongst a sardine packed number of bands, which normally consist within genres and sub-genres. If the answer rests entirely on the evidence of MWWB and their second album, Y Proffwyd Dwyll, then it is an emphatic yes.
While the first album is a fine example of crushingly heavy doom to cause a stir and announce their arrival, it is with this follow up, also on the New Heavy Sounds label, that they spread their brooding wings out significantly further than before. They do this by using their wider absorbed aspirations to, indeed, take risks and push their sound to a new level.
This wider exploratory impulse has led to the band having to re-jig and expand their line-up in order to accommodate this new found progressive sound successfully out on the road. Peter Edwards has, since the recording of the new album, joined as bass player so vocalist Jessica Ball can relinquish bass responsibilities and instead fulfil guitar and synth duties alongside Paul Davies and Wez Leon on guitars, and James Carrington on drums. So what is musically new, you may ask?
Well, the guitars are still reassuringly down tuned to perfection maintaining their bruising heaviness, while the easy to head nod tempo, as on the debut, also remains. The drumming sound is thick, punchy, and powerful to really cement the band’s heavy sound structure. One noticeable change is the double amount of songs this time around. Six tracks, but each one still 8/9 minutes long to maintain their epic nature. Where the progression lies is a fiddling with a splatter of different musical instruments to either apply the heaviness even further as on ‘Y Proffwyd Dywill’ with the aid of cello, or broaden their palette to add atmospheric colours with Moog and synths.
This all adds up to create something unearthly as on the supernaturally spooky ‘Osirian’. The wonderful bouncy rhythm and bendy guitar riff led instrumental ‘Gallego’ throws in swooning synths over the top, like Van Der Graaf Generator’s ‘Theme One’ on downers. While add in a bountiful dosage of Jessica’s ethereal, floating reverbed vocals into the equation, as delightfully illustrated on ‘Testudo’, and this all amounts to sledgehammer hitting doom with space/psych splashes – black backing paper with purple and green spots, if you like, incorporating a little twist to what has gone on before, with great effect.
It’s a melting pot of styles all carefully thrown in, to name but just a few examples which spring to mind, but also mindful of not wanting to simplify their sound; classic doom styled power chords, a touch of Celtic Frost’s Into the Pandemomium album’s mid-tempo rhythm and crunchy guitar sound, along with Hawkwind’s spacey swirling synths, a mix of Liz Frazer (Cocteau Twins) and Marissa Nadler’s otherworldly aerial vocal tones, and the resulting splurge is: Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard, and a sound that they can call their own.
If any further evidence was needed, this album not only confirms, but enhances whole heartedly, that MWWB are musically a match for their inspiring band name. Y Proffwyd Dwyll is gloriously heavy in sound, and majestic in scope.
