Ufomammut - Eve (2010)^{Release ID: 6455}

Ufomammut's fifth album, Eve, is, essentially, a single suite made up of five parts, with a total runtime of 45 minutes and is a concept album centred on the Fall of Man as Adam's wife, Eve, was tempted by a serpent to persuade her husband that they should eat an apple from the Tree of Knowledge, resulting in their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. I am a massive fan of the italian trio and I will lay it out up front, this 2010 album is my favourite release of theirs.

Ufomammut have always really been about atmosphere rather than "songs". Their space-rock influenced, psychedelic, sludgy doom metal is ever an experience and a sensation rather than an invitation to sing or hum along with the band. The band's inate heaviness registers nearly as high on the tactile scale as it does on the sonic, it's lower registers being felt almost as keenly as heard. Well, on Eve they achieve an even deeper level of atmosphere creation by introducing tropes derived from atmospheric sludge practitioners like Neurosis and Cult of Luna. This takes the form of tracks that begin deceptively serenely, building intensity, layer on layer, often accompanied by spacey, electronic flourishes until reaching a critical mass and achieving cathartic climax by exploding into roars of thundering downtuned bliss.

The opening section is a 14-minute prime example of this and is probably my favourite Ufomammut track. It builds gently, but inexorably, with an almost mystic, ritualistic, eastern vibe which may or may not have been the inspiration for the track "Pearl Snake" on Hexer's 2017 debut album Cosmic Doom Ritual, before erupting in a bassy roar, complete with bludgeoning drumming and a feedback-drenched guitar lead. As this chaos subsides we enter part II, which is another builder, but this time the build-up involves a repetitive three-note piano theme, accompanied by crashing cymbals and brooding synths that is sinister and faintly disturbing in a being-stalked-by-a-masked-killer kind of way. After this second part has reached it's apex, however, it doesn't subside into part three, but this short section doubles-down on the heaviness of the previous part's climax with a thunderous riff, accompanied by theremin-like synths and a distant roaring vocal decrying the horror of the original couple's act of defiance.

A further short section follows with a throbbing riff and ethereal voices that travel from speaker to speaker as if blowing in the aether, eventually giving way to a howling guitar solo as, presumably, the miscreant pair pay the price for the betrayal of their god. The closing section of Eve is another longer track, over thirteen minutes, that treads a now familiar furrow with a fairly repetitive and lumbering riff, once more accompanied by theremin-like cosmic airs, which eventually subside, leaving the simplistic riff to gain weight and transform into a thundering colossus which picks up pace as it becomes a maelstrom of violence as the couple pay the price for their folly and are ejected from The Garden, closing the album with a riotous and impressively heavy coda.

I like the implementation of the concept here, with the music interpreting the tale in an accessible manner without resorting to lengthy reams of lyrical verbiage, in fact the amount of vocals is very small indeed with the total lyrics for the whole album amounting to less than twenty lines, so the story never gets in the way of the music. The building of intensity and atmosphere that the band have introduced from atmo-sludge fits their style of ultra-heavy psychedelic metal to a tee and sees the band take a step up in quality as a a result here, I believe. Eve is basically a stoner's wet dream of repetition, heavy distortion and spacey electronic touches that, if I were so inclined, would have me reaching for the nearest available bong in celebration of it's awesomeness.

I was floored by the quality of this album. It came outta nowhere! A combination of crushing Black Sabbath style doom metal & drug-fuelled psychadelic rock, "Eve" is not intended to be listened to as individual tracks. It must be experienced as a whole. This is indicated strongly by the lack of song-titles & the way the tracks flow from one to another.

The opening & closing tracks are epic 13min+ builders that start deeply atmospheric & finish in chaotic walls of sound. The noisy distorted bass guitar leads from the front & vocals are left to an absolute minimum. In fact, the vocals are rare & are more for background colouring than for anything else. This is very cerebral music that I wouldn't recommend for celebratory parties. It's prime time stoner material for a dark room with just some trippy visuals on the TV. Highly recommended!