ALBUM REVIEW: Frostbitten Galaxy – Mammoth Caravan
Bordering Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma to the west, the state of Arkansas often gets overlooked by its more well-known neighbours. Yet this plucky state has a unleashed the sludgy leviathan that is MAMMOTH CARAVAN. Hailing from the state’s capital Little Rock, the trio stampeded onto the scene like a herd of rabid mammoths with their crushing debut album Ice Cold Oblivion (2023) and now they return a year-and-a-half later with their sophomore album Frostbitten Galaxy – a violent tale of mammoths in space.
MAMMOTH CARAVAN come into this album cycle with a revamped line-up; with the departure of guitarist Evan Swift, Robert Warner takes on guitar, synth and clean backing vocal duties while Khetner Howton takes over on drums and Brandon Ringo keeps his bass and harsh vocal roles. This reshuffle has brought about a fresh perspective for the Little Rock trio; as they look to expand their offering, Frostbitten Galaxy is a fresh start in a new creative direction for the sludge connoisseurs.
The album retains the band’s signature sludge sound, but it is now imbued with moments of rudimentary, spacey synths and instrumental psychedelic passages, which offers up more opportunity for the band to experiment with dynamics and build up the atmosphere – so when the big riffs do come in they have a weightier punch. With that in mind, Frostbitten Galaxy is certainly heavier and more diverse than its predecessor. It is also a more polished album as it moves away from Ice Cold Oblivion’s raw, death metal style of production and all out sludge and in doing so sees MAMMOTH CARAVAN develop their songwriting abilities and tighten up their overall performances.
As for the album’s concept, it’s a pretty gnarly one: a violent science fiction tale of mammoths conquering the galaxy and subjugating all that stand before them – as depicted on the album’s trippy cover artwork created by Tony Koehl. MAMMOTH CARAVAN do an excellent job of putting the listener right in the middle of this chaotic and primal narrative where violent prehistoric mammals run riot on a mission for conquest. The more atmospheric approach to this record makes the descent into destruction more foreboding and threatening. As MAMMOTH CARAVAN gradually build up the songs you get this sense of impending doom, as a riff the weight of an adult male mammoth is then promptly unleashed on your skull with no mercy.
All that being said, while it is interesting to see the new creative direction MAMMOTH CARAVAN have gone in, the album still feels a little one dimensional. While Ice Cold Oblivion was a beastly, primal slab of sludgy, Dopethrone-era ELECTRIC WIZARD riffs drenched in distortion, it felt like it had a clear relative direction. Frostbitten Galaxy feels a bit lost in that regard as the psychedelic elements don’t always fit comfortably with the sludgier riffs, which means it can be a bit jarring at times – although Cosmic Clairvoyance and the album’s closing track Sky Burial are both excellent examples of what the band are trying to achieve. Despite this, the band have undergone a change in personnel and will be looking to find their sonic identity again, so there is some leniency with this criticism.
The album opens up with the ominous strummed and chorus-affected chords of Absolute Zero, slowly building to a cacophony of bombastic sludge riffs and thunderous drums, this sets the scene for what is to come, as the mammoths take over the galaxy. Cosmic Clairvoyance has more of a trippy, psychedelic feel to it, and showcases the band’s new approach. Slowly building up, its climax is an anthemic riff that then fades out into the next track Tusks Of Orion. This is an all out sludge track, with raw guttural vocals and a ridiculously heavy riff loaded with dissonance and destructive force.
Siege In The Stars opens up the second half of the album with a brief cosmic intro before launching into a wall of riffs and distortion. This song also packs the most groove on the album, which commands you to bang your head through its entirety. Prehistoric Spacefarer follows a similar formula, packing heavy grooves with crushing riffs that bludgeon you into space dust. The album closes with the aforementioned Sky Burial, a seven-and-a-half-minute psych track complete with clean vocals for the first time. This track feels like a step in the right direction with what MAMMOTH CARAVAN are trying to achieve creatively. Packed full of atmosphere and an anthemic chorus, it’s a surprising track but a perfect one to round off the album.
While there’s nothing here to really scream home about, Frostbitten Galaxy for the most part is a solid sludge album with a few surprises thrown in. Ultimately it signifies change for MAMMOTH CARAVAN, and hopefully something they can build off of with their new line-up.
Rating: 7/10
Frostbitten Galaxy is set for release on October 4th via Blade Setter Records.
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