It's no secret that I love this band and I'd love their music even if they weren't Italian. My paisanos in Ufomammut have come up with another winner and only 5 months after the last one was released. Opus Alter is part two in their ORO series, a sequel to Opus Primum. If you didn't get the last one, pick up both parts today and listen to them back to back. Or in reverse order, or shuffle. It really doesn't matter all that much. Opus Alter is just as good as Opus Primum, maybe even better. Ufomammut is the type of band that you want a lot of.
Opus Alter starts off with the 8 minute instrumental mindbinder "Oroborus." There are some Space Ritual type keyboard sounds before the bassline introduces the groove. When the band kicks in, prepare for lift off. It really sounds like Hawkwind spiked Black Sabbath's coke with LSD. "Luxon" starts off weird with some staticy space transmissions and slowly builds into something that sounds like Sleep covering "Destroyer" by Twisted Sister. "Sulphudrew" is 12 minutes of VoiVod channeling Pink Floyd. "Sublime" is thankfully not a tribute to the band Sublime but weird space interlude full of samples and distorted bass. "Deityrant" brings it all crashing down to Earth with a fast one full of screaming and more weird noises.
Ufomammut are one of the few bands that really mixes heaviness with psychedelia really well. The press release describes some tripped out plot that is supposedly involves "the magical stream controlled by the human mind to gain control of every single particle of the world surrounding us." I have no idea if that's true or not. The Italians are big on mixing tobacco in with their joints, that probably has something to do with the concept.
--Woody
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http://www.neurotrecordings.com/artists/ufomammut/ufomammut.php
