Review by UnhinderedbyTalent for Ufomammut - Idolum (2008)

Idolum and I have history. It was one of the many albums I played on repeat, night after night during my many stays in hotels during my days working as a consultant across the length and breadth of the UK and Ireland. Often, it was my headphones, my phone and me working long into the night on various builds of datasets, lesson plans, project plans and RAID logs for the various programmes I was across at the time. Its hypnotic and psychedelic qualities were well suited to this type of work I found, and I would say it made the often-laborious nature of the work more sustainable.

Having been a long-time fan of Hawkwind’s Space Ritual album, Idolum hit immediate comparators for me which opened it up for me more or less immediately. Just as easily as its thunderous roar could jolt me into action on any task, at the same time it had enough serenity to be able to support me entering a sufficiently relaxed state to empty my brain and be ready for a sound sleep.

The build of the opening track before it slams into the listener with the weight of one planet colliding into another sets up the experience of Idolum perfectly from the start. Although I find the album to be very well tempered and balanced there is no denying the sheer power and ferocity of the sludge elements on display here. It is an album that does not always command your full attention, therefore. However, when it wants you to stop what you are doing, it absolutely knows what to do to steer you into its colossal trajectory. As such, the album works on multiple levels, even if you decide to turn all the lights out and play it loudly or through headphones, it can give just as much reward as if you are reading, cooking etc, as it plays.

Following this record, Ufomammut dropped a single track, forty-four-minute album before bringing us the Oro duo of records in 2012, which are also records I have spent many enjoyable hours with. If you want consistency in your music, look no further than Ufomammut’s discography from 2008 to 2015. Heavy, spacey and utterly addictive psychedelic sludge/stoner/doom metal at its finest.