Mammoth Grinder have been rumbling away for ten years, and in this time I’ve continued to check in with them due to the reliability of the folks involved (Chris Ulsh of Impalers/Vaaska/Power Trip infamy; Alex Hughes from Hatred Surge/Holy Money, who looks to be absent these days) and the sonic boxes they tick. While I’ve never been 100% sold this is definitely the fieriest thing I’ve heard from them, with everything admirably maxed-out and the band playing like their lives depend on it. The sound is deep, cloying and fraught, leaving the listener with little room to manoeuvre or breathe, and while it’s the band’s death metal influences that have been pushed to the fore there’s also a nod to thundering, left-of-centre titans like Iron Age and High On Fire in terms of aggression, dynamic and the torrential flow of the riffing. The results are undeniably impressive, and while I won’t necessarily be snapping up the back catalogue items I’m missing you can bet your eye teeth that I’ll be paying a lot more attention in the future.
