UFOMAMMUT – Fenice – LP – Black / Red Splatter Vinyl

LP – Limited Edition Red with Black Splatter Vinyl. Housed in a Gatefold Sleeve.

This May, Italian alchemists and power trio Ufomammut return with their ninth studio album, Fenice via Neurot Recordings. But not as weve heard them before, now more intimate, more free.

For over 20 years, the band has combined the heaviness and majesty of dynamic riff worship with a nuanced understanding of psychedelic tradition and history in music, creating a cosmic, futuristic, and technicolor sound destined for absolute immersion.

Fenice (meaning Phoenix in Italian) symbolically represents endless rebirth and the ability to start again after everything seems doomed. The album is the first recording with new drummer Levre, and truly marks a new chapter in Ufomammut history.

I think we lost our spontaneity, album after album, says Urlo. We tried to make more complicated songs and albums, but I think at some point we just ended up repeating ourselves. With Fenice, we were ready to start from zero, we had no past anymore – so we just wanted to be reborn and rise from the ashes..

While the band are well-known for their psychedelic travels into the far reaches of the cosmos, Fenice is a much more introspective listening experience. Fenice was conceived as a single concept track, divided in six facets of this inward-facing focus. Sonic experimentations abound in the exploration of this central theme; synths and experimental vocal effects are featured more prominently than ever before as the band push themselves ever further into the uncharted territory of their very identity.

The towering synths on the opening track Duat evoke an almighty machine rising from the depths of primordial ooze. Theres a shift to a frenetic garage-psych pace before mellowing out into a more familiar doomy stomp. Kepherer is a respite, albeit a slight one, returning to the pulsing rhythms of the albums intro before plunging the listener into the menacing build and release of Psychostasia next. Each oscillation of this extraordinary album feels inevitable – Ufomammut are after all, masters of their craft, and when it comes to creating enveloping sonic journeys into the unknown, its their uninhibited sense of exploration that breaches new sonic ground.

Fenice is the sound of a band whose very essence has been rejuvenated, and are welcoming the chance to create music in the way they know best; by unfolding carefully and attentively, by melding those extreme dynamics which render Fenice as a living and breathing creature – and by writing gargantuan riffs that herald their very rebirth.

* vinyl image displayed is for mock-up purposes only and actual vinyl may differ in appearance/colour ratio on arrival.

Tracklist:

01. DUAT
02. KHEPERER
03. PSYCHOSTASIA
04. METAMORPHOENIX
05. PYRAMIND
06. EMPYROS