When reviewing Mammoth Volume's last album "The Cursed Who Perform The Lavagod Rites" Desert Psychlist took issue with the band calling their music "weird" preferring instead to describe what the Swedish outfit brought to the party as being "courageous" and "brave". Some might ask what we meant by these terms, well what we we were referring to was Mammoth Volume's refusal to be tied down to any specific sound or genre and the way that they were unafraid to draw into their grooves musical threads from a diverse array of sources. Now you may have thought that the eclectic nature of the bands music might have been reigned in slightly for their next album but no, if anything "Raised Up By Witches" (Blues Funeral Recordings) is even more "courageous" and "braver" than its predecessor.
Things start pretty straightforward and rocking with "The Battle of Lightwedge" the songs chugging stoner-ish guitar textures and clean sometimes gritty vocals, backed by low bouncy bass and fairly restrained drumming, harks back to the bands early work but manages to do while still sounding like its pushing boundaries.. Things get a little bit more skewered with next track "Black Horse Beach" the songs angular rhythms and off centred keyboard flourishes remind this listener of jazz fusioneers Weather Report in places but then Radiohead in others. The shadow of Frank Zappa looms large over the eclectic next track "Scissor Bliss" while "Diablo III: Faces In The Water" channels elements of prog, stoner rock and doom while managing to sound totally unrelated to any of them. There is a Beatle-esque feel to the delightful "Lisa" but also an element of Pete Gabriel era Genesis too, which is an odd combination but one nonetheless very pleasing on the ear. Mammoth Volume go out on a multi-coloured limb for the psychedelic "Serpent in the Deep" to create a sound and groove not unlike something you might find gracing a compilation of rare 60's psych songs from bands who never quite got the breaks they hoped would come their way. The chugging guitar textures are back for "Cult of Eneera" but here are delivered in an off-kilter fashion and are combined with a vocal that strays into Bertolt Brecht-like theatrical territory on certain passages. The off-kilter nature of the previous track is mirrored in next track "A Tale about a Photon" a delightfully left of centre prog workout with YES- like undertones fronted by vocals that are a mix of slightly twisted harmonies and post-punkish crooning. Finally we arrive at last track "Sången om Ymer" a scintillatingly angular and constantly shifting blend of jazz fusion, folk and prog over which vocals are delivered in the bands native Swedish tongue, it may not be the big all guns blazing finale you might be expecting but that's Mammoth Volume for you, these guys are masters at delivering the unexpected.
Big debates are raging over the effects of AI on the arts but until the powers that be can invent a programme that can reproduce music as eclectic, off-centred and deliciously diverse as that which Mammoth Volume deliver with "Raised Up By Witches" then we can all lay in our beds safe in the knowledge that real music played by real musicians is still something worth celebrating.
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