ALBUM REVIEW: My Body To The Worms – Mammon’s Throne
Falling at the same hurdles that scuppered 2023’s self-titled second album from securing its victory lap, MAMMON’S THRONE’s third album retraces not only their own steps, but the steps of countless death-doom acts before them. Simply put, My Body To The Worms is to death-doom what paint-by-numbers sets are to art, an accessible yet underwhelming imitation of life.
Despite being billed in press materials as their ‘most ambitious work to date’, MAMMON’S THRONE provide countless contradictions from the onset and throughout. Nine-minute opener Senseless Death plays out just like its title: depraved death-doom that drones on like a funeral dirge, its indistinguishable vocals buried so below the mix they might as well be hibernating at the centre of the earth. Like gnawing through fat slabs of pork belly searching for some actual meat to chew on, this track really ought to start halfway: gothic vocals that creatively blur the line between MEAT LOAF and Nick Holmes float eerily over a melancholic riff that conjures a lonely harpist locked in a tower, before its deep growls, double-kicks, and chugging riffs morph it into a groovier The Plague Within-era PARADISE LOST.
Much like a student stealing homework answers straight from the textbook, MAMMON’S THRONE pay too much attention to death-doom’s past. Drearily drawled cleans that shapeshift into dogged death growls on An Angel’s Grace is just one example of vocalist Matthew Miller’s impersonation of PARADISE LOST’s Nick Holmes impersonating METALLICA’s James Hetfield after hearing The Black Album for the first time: only, like movies, the sequel is never as good as the original.
Perhaps MAMMON’S THRONE’s biggest issue is their inability to imbue their music with an emotional depth. They can play their instruments, they can craft rich songs, they can build some suspense, but for the life of them, they cannot hit you where it hurts, they cannot elevate their music beyond mere imitations of its inspirations.
Death-doom, in its most basic form, should feel like its agonisingly slow riffs are suffocating you in its downtuned-swamp. Here though, the punches are well and truly pulled. With the exception of An Angel’s Grace, Sam Talbot-Canon’s bass is all but missing in action across the album, whilst Nick Boschan’s percussion plods along with all the tension of a seaside stroll so much as a funeral march. Miller’s deliveries are the biggest offender, Every Day More Sickened sounding like how watching an NFL player fumble a pass feels, it’s tale of human depravity lacking its punchline.
My Body To The Worms may be MAMMON’S THRONE’s longest record to date, but with two lacklustre instrumentals that try their hardest to turn John Carpenter scores into doom-laden interludes, and a handful of tracks that largely overstay their welcome, it feels like a step backwards for a band facing an upward trajectory.
Rating: 5/10
My Body to the Worms is set for release on March 13th via Hammerheart Records.
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