Mother of God
Anthropos (Small Stone Recordings)
release date: 2/5/2013
by Scott Hefflon
All 11 songs of the debut from this Swedish band. Metallic stoner rock riffery meets heavy grunge soulful/sorrowful vocals (early Alice in Chains influence is easy to hear), Chris Cornell and John Garcia worship is plain when Daniel Nygren let’s it soar, and there’s enough Mastodian cosmic swirl and thrust (like tearing up the still, inky sky with Sabbath’s “rocket engines burning fuel so fast”) so it’s not duh-metal. Sneaking in some Deep Purple keyboard magic helps keep it ’70s real, and some drier production, like Dozer, keep the metal second to the fuzz. While the last few tracks drag, and there are skipables in the middle as well (not to mention, of course, that most everything here can be traced back elsewhere, albeit somewhere truly amazing and close to our hearts), this young band is exciting and pure and worth keeping an eye on to see what they can do themselves.
(www.smallstone.com)