What does it sound like?:
Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard. I just wanted to type that again.
It’s time to develop a theory of nominative determinism as applied to band names. How could a band whose name appears to have been generated from cutups of Cathedral or Electric Wizard lyric sheets play anything other than crushingly heavy sludgy doom? Could a C86 band ever have carried this name? Could an act trading as MWWB pass muster as a twee folk act? Could The Shop Assistants have played grindcore? NWA been the new Mantovani?
This is the Welsh metallers’ second album in twelfth months, and the genre signifiers are all present and correct. There’s plenty of churning funereal doom, allied to crushingly dense monolithic riffs that sound like normal heavy metal wrapped in lead, condensed to the size of a pinhead, and dropped through the mantle of the planet.
That’s not all MWWB bring to the party though. A few tracks are adorned with stark cello, just in case you didn’t think it was scary enough already. Unusually for the genre, there’s no cookie monster vocals. Instead we have an ethereal female voice riding above the fuzz. Multitracked and reverbed, this adds a welcome, softening, psychedelic edge. Most prominently of all though, the record is drenched in weird 1970s electronic noises that Dik Mik would be proud of. If you ever went to bed after eating too much cheese and dreamed of Delia Derbyshire jamming with Black Sabbath then I’ve got good news for you.
To sum up, it’s like watching the Headbanger’s Ball on Skaro, and then your big sister comes home and puts on her Cocteau Twins tape. Awesome, yes?
What does it all *mean*?
‘Y Proffwyd Dwyll’ means ‘The False Prophet’
Goes well with…
a veritable bale of grass, I shouldn’t wonder
Release Date:
Might suit people who like…
Sabbath, Hawkwind, 1970s electronica, Electric Wizard, sludge, doom, Robson & Jerome
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Great review! I lolled more than watching a Judd Atapow film!
Cookie Monster vocals gets an up from me 🙂
I can’t claim credit for that one, I’m afraid. It’s quite a standard term for describing death metal growls. It is good though, isn’t it?
Marvelous review. All that it lacked was a taste of what the Bastard sound like but now I listen to this I realise how well you described their sound.
(If I were ever to pluck up enough courage to visit Rob’s yurt, I somehow suspect I’d meet people like this.)
Fuuuuuuuck………….
(as I believe the applicable terminology goes.)