By: Richard Maw
Album Type: Full Length
Date Released: 6/11/2015
Label: Napalm Records
Weighty riffs with a little of the coldness of black metal about them, half sung/half shouted vocals are mixed distantly behind the rather bleak sounding guitars and pounding drums. The effect is kind of like if Conan listened to Dissection and Bathory and then discovered that they could not play that fast but took on some of the style anyway. “Vultures Prey” perfectly sums up this aesthetic. Mammoth Storm have their own take on doom and have incorporated some elements of black metal and trad metal to create a really good record that should sit well with fans of Foehammer, Conan, Sleep and those doom fans who like a bit of black metal as well
“Fornjot” CD//DD//LP track listing:
1. Augurs Echo
2. Vultures Prey
3. Sumerian Cry
4. Fornjot
5. Horns of Jura
6. Hekla
Mammoth Storm is:
Daniel Arvidsson | Bass, Vocals
Christer Ström | Guitars
Emil Ahlman | Drums, Organ
The Review:
Epic and sludgy doom is on the menu courtesy of the mighty Mammoth Storm. They are as large and as crushing as their name suggests as opener “Augurs Echo” lumbers into earshot. The rest of the album continues in the same vein; weighty riffs with a little of the coldness of black metal about them, half sung/half shouted vocals are mixed distantly behind the rather bleak sounding guitars and pounding drums. The effect is kind of like if Conan listened to Dissection and Bathory and then discovered that they could not play that fast but took on some of the style anyway. “Vultures Prey” perfectly sums up this aesthetic.
There is “Sumerian Cry” to break up the record a little, being as it is a sub three minute piece of music that summons forth the atmosphere of a barbarian crossing some kind of wasteland or desert plain. The title track follows with nine and a half minutes of skull crushing heaviosity. Truly heavy and bound to get your head nodding, this is doom as it should be. “Horns of Jura” has a similar playing time but brings with it a more angular riffing style.
The closing thirteen and a half minutes of “Hekla” is as expansive as it is bleak. The opening is a slow build towards a downcast riff that finally ushers in the snare drum as the song builds. It would be true to say that Mammoth Storm are not doing anything new, per se, but they also have their own take on doom and have incorporated some elements of black metal and trad metal to create a really good record that should sit well with fans of Foehammer, Conan, Sleep and those doom fans who like a bit of black metal as well.
