The world isn’t exactly lacking for Swedish groovy retro. In the wake of Graveyard‘s multinational footprint, a shift has taken place in Sweden’s already formidable heavy underground, toward vintage gear and old soul, and while you won’t hear me complain, there’s an element of familiarity amidst the fuzz. For Nyköping double-guitar foursome Mamont, however, there’s a blend with a more modern influence that comes through as well, so that you couldn’t strictly call their first, three-track EP retro any more than you could say it belongs to today’s heavy psych scene. Those elements are there, no argument, but they’re not alone.

Being something of a nerd for Swedish rock in general, I was anxious to check out Mamont‘s first outing, which they have streaming over at their Thee Facebooks, and whether it’s their reinterpretation of Black Sabbath‘s “The Wizard” for the opening riff of “Carnal Desire” or the Witch-esque moan guitarist Karl Adolfsson works into his vocals for “Blind Man,” there always seems to be substance behind the hooks and the by-now recognizable jangle in his and fellow six-stringer Jonathan Wårdsäter‘s riffing. Likewise, “Blind Man” breaks into a natural-sounding jam held firmly together by the rhythm section of bassist Victor Wårdsäter and drummer Jimmy Karlsson, and closer “Crack in the Sky” is even more focused on the instrumental side of their approach, working in a perfunctory verse before putting its head down and jamming out once more.

With so much happening on Europe’s heavy psych circuit at this point and Sweden’s already-noted retro leanings, there’s an interesting blend of sides playing out on Mamont‘s EP, and as it’s the precursor to a full-length reportedly due this fall on Ozium Records, it seems like a good time to get introduced. I wouldn’t be surprised if the album had even more jamming, but either way, it’ll be fun to see where the young band wind up with their explorations. They’re on Facebook, as noted, and Spotify, and they don’t have an embed-read player at this point, but you’ll find a live version of “Carnal Desire” set to still photos in the Vimeo clip below.

Tags: Mamont, Nyköping, Ozium Records, Sweden

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 26th, 2012 at 4:51 pm and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.