Album Review: Ufomammut, Fenice
For something so fluid in the listening experience, there are an awful lot of angles from which one might view Ufomammut‘s Fenice. Issued in continued association with Neurot Recordings, it is the ninth full-length from the groundbreaking Italian three-piece, whose Poia (guitar, synth) and Urlo (bass, vocals, synth) double as part of the visual arts collective Malleus, so long as one counts 2012’s two-part Oro: Opus Primum (review here) and Oro: Opus Alter (review here) as a single work.
It is also the band’s first album since declaring a perfectly timed indefinite hiatus in early 2020 and returning in April 2021 with new drummer Alessandro “Levre” Levrero, a longtime associate brought into the fold after the departure of Vita (now in Sonic Wolves), which was just the second lineup change Ufomammut have undergone in their 20-plus years of existence. And never mind that Ufomammut are responsible for no small part of the shape of what has become cosmic doom over the years of their tenure. Their blending of synthesizer/keyboard spaciousness, crushing riffs, atmospheric drones and a general sense of chaos — despite having a plan all the while — is singular.
While their influence has been present in the works of many who’ve come along since, Ufomammut remain unto themselves in sound, and Fenice is essentially the process by which they revamp and revitalize what that singularity is. Across the assembled six tracks and 38 minutes, the three-piece of Urlo, Poia and Levre set themselves to the task of remaking Ufomammut in the image of who they are today. Much of that will be recognizable to longer-term listeners or even those who took on 2017’s we’re-telling-you-this-is-definitely-our-eighth-record, 8 (review here), but from the energy with which cuts like 10-minute opener and longest track (immediate points) “Duat” and what follows are delivered, as well as the starkness with which they move back and forth between atmospheric experimentalism and drone and their rib-crunching low-end plunder, there’s a clear, refreshed sensibility to what they’re doing. The time away did them well, and among Fenice‘s strengths in production value and creative reach is the core desire to push themselves forward that has made Ufomammut so crucial and influential in the first place. No two Ufomammut records are the same — even the Oros had their own personalities — and the next one will be different from this. That should be comforting, whether you’re familiar with the band’s past work or not.
“Duat” spends its first three minutes world-building around curious depth charges, but by the time Ufomammut are another two deep, they’ve unfurled the full-bore tonal density with which they’ll work — Lorenzo Stecconi, who engineered, mixed and mastered, has been a mainstay presence of their output and his familiarity serves them well in these new songs and in their own new incarnation; that is to say, they had enough change to deal with going into the studio — and it continues to grow massive as it goes, with the on-the-beat punctuation of Levre‘s snare both along for the ride and propulsive in its own right in helping establish the overarching flow which will carry directly into the shorter drone piece “Kepherer” and on from there, weaving through the rest of the material.
Some right on rumble and bassy vibrations in “Kepherer” — those might be drums, actually — offset by high feedback and effects manipulation, and in just under three minutes, Ufomammut emphasize the hypnotic side of their approach in a way that may well be informed by some of Urlo‘s solo work in the multimedia experimental project The Mon, but “Psychostasia” brings those transcendental waveforms back to ground soon enough, Levre‘s drums and the far-back strum of Poia‘s guitar creating an open space for Urlo‘s melodic, dreamy-echo vocals. It’s further trance creation until about four and a half minutes in, then the guitar comes forward for a lead and, at 4:48, the move toward pummel begins in earnest.
They’ll get there step by step, here letting the drums go faster, there pulling back on bass, but at 5:31, they let it loose and the vocals return, and the sweep is a triumph of the promise of Ufomammut‘s aesthetic. A synth freakout is a quick bridge back to the onslaught, and as they crash into the ending of “Psychostasia” and into the beginning of the likely-autobiographical-on-some-level “Metamorphoenix,” a sample and the wash of synth noise again make the going immersive bordering on claustrophobic. As heavy as Ufomammut can get, sometimes it’s their quieter stretches that seem to most pull the air out of the room.
Just past two minutes in, “Metamorphoenix” introduces its central guitar figure, but it’s buried. Barely there, like a sumbliminal message. It’s not until the wash recedes — leaving the maybe-backwards spoken sample that accompanied behind — that “Metamorphoenix” seems to find the ground beneath it. There’s a build taking place, but the band have done this long enough that they won’t be rushed even for themselves, and each measure that ensues has a purpose of its own in feeding the forward movement.
By the time they’re seven minutes into the song’s 7:41, the tension is palpable to a near-skin-crawling degree, and it’s up to “Pyramind” to pay it off, which it does with an almost immediate turn into doomly crashes and out-the-airlock synthesizer, a lumbering that consumes the first two minutes of “Pyramind”‘s also-seven, and though they mellow out after two minutes in, the drums and bass under the heavy-but-floating guitar provide assurance there’s more to come. This part of “Pyramind” has vocals in layers — Ufomammut have never been a particularly singer-minded act, but I won’t take away from what Urlo does here or elsewhere in their catalog — and that covers the establishing a resurgent intensity of tone and riff, and at 5:36 into the 7:04, they move back to the nod and the crash that seem at first to be an apex for Fenice as a whole but with the turn to the 2:48 closer “Empyros” become just another stage of the setup.
There’s a stop, but on the next beat, “Empyros” is there and the impact is immediate, and Ufomammut finish this maybe-ninth record with a vital heavy groove, almost raw in its unfolding, but so clear in its message of riff worship as to be unmistakable. Synth swirls around, and there’s one change — at 1:43, into the next unbridled bit of skull-stompery. There are a few shouted lines, but they wrap Fenice on the relative quick and leave the listener to wonder how they managed to pack that much magnitude into a single LP. The answer to that, of course, is that they’re Ufomammut, and that’s what they do.
Whatever your level of experience with Ufomammut, whether you know them or don’t, whether you’ve been on board since 1999 or if Fenice is the first thing you’ve heard them, there are elements in these songs that have become staples of their style. They’re still two-thirds the same band, after all. But as much as Ufomammut have reaffirmed the progressive aspects of their past and remained loyal to themselves as songwriters, Fenice sounds like a new beginning too. That’s obviously not a coincidence.
