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Released on September 25, 2015 via Riot Season Records
Let’s get one thing straight. Early Mammal are a rock and roll band. They are a rock and roll band in the sense that they don’t give a fuck. They also happen to make severely good rock and roll music too which kinda helps. They’re so rock and roll they don’t even have t-shirts. Nope, this band have bags instead. Bags to carry around your Early Mammal records if you so wish. Bags of rock and roll, just like the band.
A band like this deserve some rock and roll words written about them and putting aside the urge to do a Lester Bangs and wax pivotal about how this band will change your life and once you have heard them you may find yourself part of a cult of swamp loving psychedelic demons, baying for one more riff before they leave you out to dry (hang on, surely this is Hunter S Thompson speaking here!), some semblance of normality must resume.
How to keep normal when such tremendous music is on display though? The sort of music that invades, pervades your life and haunts your stereo like a proverbial phantom ready to caress you with those gorgeous riffs, not forgetting that organ, it’s music of another time. It is also music of now.
It’s an album to sink into and savour. Its timeless feel adds to the sense of detachment you get as you listen along and as ‘Inside’ throws you aloft onto some spinning quagmire of psychedelic sound, it’s as if nothing else matters. The liquified guitars just add to the overwhelming sense of one-ness and freedom. In reality you’ll be thumping the air with your fist and screaming along.
It’s quite a measured drift through the album and Early Mammal like to take their time. They know when to keep the music sparse and for the main the music is simple bass, guitar and drums plodding out a simple beat. As the organ swells and the guitars start to melt in time, things take a decidedly heavy turn. Supremely psychedelic, it’s also just a simple blues too.
Influences and similarities can be spotted throughout, but one gets the idea that these are accidental rather than on purpose. The simplicity of it all begs recognition although you may find yourself thrown off course by the sudden sample which bursts out before the final song takes you home. Like one last blast of out there reverie, it disturbs your psych slumber and wakes you up to an album, which finishes on the same riff it began with. Sublime.
So is that enough rock and roll words to do this album justice? Probably too much. If it makes you go out and buy this album it’s job done though. Early Mammal are a band to be cherished and loved. They are a rock and roll band too. A damn fine one.
