Review: Mamuthones ‘From Word To Flesh’

I’ve always found the genre term ‘neo folk’ a bit confusing. ‘Neo’ implies new, recent or revived, and as far as I know, folk music has never really stopped. There never seemed to be a period where practitioners of gentle, or bittersweet, acoustic guitar ballads sat it out entirely in the face of whatever was ruling the airwaves.

My understanding of neo folk is that it’s typically music that is a bit more Dead Can Dance than… say, Gordon Lightfoot. Somber and occasionally sinister, dark but often with flashes of exuberance. So, while the term can be a bit odd (then again, so is ‘alternative rock’ in a post ‘90s context), I understand it is a particular style.

That said, nothing could really prepare me for how Italy Mamuthones does things on From Word To Flesh, their latest release on Rocket Recordings. The opener, Burn From Inside, is a slow and steady funerary procession, a personal march off to oblivion. Mamuthones have named themselves after an ancient ritual practiced in Sardinia involving masks, prompting an archaic melancholy in the singular percussive beat, pushing the music over the horizon.

gestures to post-punk, ambient, and who knows what else, swirling on the musical vortex that is their imagination…

The following track is a different beast entirely as A Cage Full Of Sins is supremely ominous proto-techno krautrock in the style of Kraftwerk and Neu! It’s a harrowing shift on a completely different sonic astral plane. Can’t Be Done is a meditative number that brings a sense of stability with a mantra like repeating lyric, ‘Can’t be done till the day has come, can’t be done’. It reminds me of Grails with its ending array of world percussion and melodic whimsicalness.

The mournful art rock of Before You Leave and the post-punk-meets-hippie rhythm of A Symmetry Of Faith pull the listener between two vastly different dimensions. The spoken word-oriented Son Of Myself gives a spacefaring beatnik vibe of cosmic uncertainty, while the final track of Carry On delivers a synth sunrise that would make Tangerine Dream proud.

Simply put, I was wowed by how wonderfully weird Mamuthones brand of neo folk is, with its gestures to post-punk, ambient, and who knows what else, swirling on the musical vortex that is their imagination. As eccentric as it is, it makes for a fine meditative journey and is wholeheartedly recommended to fans of the genre or those unfamiliar with it altogether. If you want to try something new, Mamuthones has a fleshy word for you.

Label: Rocket Recordings
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram

Scribed by: Rob Walsh