There are several things in life that I will always turn to when I need something comfortable and reliable. Fair to Midland, The Good Place, scrambled eggs with toast and jam, and my favorite black denim jacket are but a smattering of those things which I consistently return to that make me feel safe and happy. Nothing about them needs to change even if they aren’t perfect; they will always click for me. For some, stoner doom is that comfort item, that thing that gets all the love just for being what it is. I imagine this is partly why the style largely hasn’t needed to evolve very much throughout its existence. In some ways, that’s a great thing, as it makes reaching for new bands in the scene a reliable bet. On the other hand, very little feels fresh, memorable or novel. For better or for worse, Greek stoner doom quartet Acid Mammoth’s fourth record Supersonic Megafauna Collision squarely falls into that safe, never-changing category.
At their core, Acid Mammoth represents a lumbering, unstoppable force that crushes immovable objects underfoot. It’s been that way since their self-titled debut and it remains that way today. Supersonic Megafauna Collision takes what worked on Under Acid Hoof and Caravan, copies and pastes them into another identical, pachyderm-shaped mold. Acid Mammoth’s songwriting tactics remain firmly in Sleep meets Forming the Void-in-slow-motion territory, although those groups still reign supreme for your stoner groove fix. Adding major appeal for vocalist aficionados like myself, Acid Mammoth employs a sneering tenor that sounds like a belting variant of Black Sabbath-era Ozzy Osbourne with a greater range. Just as before, Acid Mammoth’s percussion section steals the show, enlivening the elephantine trudge of fuzzy doom beyond what I consider the norm in this space. In a valiant attempt to add greater verve to extremely basic riffs and leads, bluesy guitar solos gain a more prevalent presence on Supersonic Megafauna Collision, surely giving fans of the style a pleasantly vivacious surprise in their lackadaisical doom.
Emphasizing Supersonic Megafauna Collision’s lax compositions, a self-titled opener hooks you with cool tribal drums and then traps you inside blatantly repetitive, simplistic riffs and languid verses for almost seven minutes. In the same breath, however, the song’s chorus is insidiously catchy and memorable, and the guitar solos drip with bluesy swagger. “Fuzzogasm” then drops the ball entirely, dumbing down riffs and leads such that, despite the slight ramp-up in tempo, the song sacrifices whatever momentum and memorability thus far generated. It’s not until “Atomic Shaman” that I hear anything that moves past stock standard. Opening with an excellent sample, “Atomic Shaman” follows through with thoroughly satisfying kit work, scuzzy grooves and interesting structural shifts. Frustratingly, Acid Mammoth mis-stomp again later with the atmospheric drift of “One With the Void.” While effective as a point of rest, it lacks any distinctive qualities other than being quiet and relaxing to help it find a substantive voice in this experience.
Supersonic Megafauna Collision concludes on a monumentally bloated epic entitled “Tusko’s Last Trip,” which handily encapsulates the best and the worst aspects of Acid Mammoth’s writing. The first portion of this song languishes amidst stale, recycled riffs backed by suitably cool organs that are too buried in the mix to appreciate properly. To my great pleasure, though, it then drops a walloping payload of swaggering, cleverly syncopated, and earth-shaking riffs, bluesy solos enhanced by layered harmony, and buttery transitions between measures. Sadly, this unexpected shot of excitement falls to the wayside as more of the same repetitive stoner stock reasserts itself. A few cool moments crop up down the line—a delightful vocal refrain at around 7:30, followed by a cool riff at 8:15, and a too-short but effective solo at 9:25—but not enough to justify twelve minutes of mediocre doom.
It doesn’t bode well for an album when its most compelling content represents but a small fraction of total runtime, but that’s unfortunately the case for Supersonic Megafauna Collision. I can’t say any of this material is actively bad. It is, however, boring. Granted, Acid Mammoth chose perhaps the most difficult genre to make wholly engaging, but modern contemporaries like Sleep, Forming the Void, and Dopethrone managed to carve names for themselves by doing just that on the same field. I’m simply impatient for Acid Mammoth to do the same.
Rating: Disappointing
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Heavy Psych Sounds
Websites: facebook.com/acidmammoth | acidmammoth.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: April 5th, 2024
