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Mammal, "Lonesome Drifter"
Better known for his electronic rhythm and bruise work, Mammal's Gary Beauvais moves his project into loner doom blues territory. Not as radical as move as it first reads, Mammal may have changed their palette for a bass and guitar but it is still steadily brooding and unsettled work. The electronic ruts are gone in favor of stringed instrument grooves, his music channelled into a gloomy simplicity.
Recorded during a period of isolation, the record reeks of life strung-out on stress, grime and modern living. "Drifter in the City" is the clearest distillation of his case, a vision filled with fumes and solitude during a sonic youth type lull. Even With only half the tracks featuring lyrics, the theme is solidly represented; the instrumental material is just as, if not more, clear in its intent. The furrowed brow sound of Lonesome Drifter begins in earnest on opener "Repulsion" and its bounced-ball digital beat. The loose strings of the instruments tracing the edges of the notes like a trail of regrets.
"Cyclops" continues to seep feedback, pink scar tissue fingers garrotting notes. There is a mood of doom metal across the album, but without any of its associated clichés. Only seconds into "Fatherlands" visuals of bleak desert horizons are thrown up, in fact the whole album has a heavy (in both senses) visual sense. Mammal's slow and simple riffs crawl along, the spurned frequencies scrambling between the heavy chew of notes.
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