'Holy mother, that’s some fucking heavy ass shit'. That was pretty much my first thought on listening to ‘Mammalian’ by Sheffield’s Naisian. What they’ve produced here is five awesome tracks of what I can only describe as Progressive Sludge (Post Sludge?) Metal and man it fucking kicks some butt!
The records crashes in to your consciousness with some dirty, filthy riffage at the opening of ‘Fletcher-Munson’ but then this surprisingly drops down in to a lovely mellow section of gentle guitar work. It doesn’t last long and we’re soon back to the nasty stuff but this kind of imaginative change of direction permeates the record and elevates ‘Mammalian’ from being just another sludge album in to being something rather special indeed.
These guys show their influences, everything from Sabbath through to more modern advocates of noise like Isis and Capricorns, but are not enslaved by them, instead adding something of their own to the mix. For instance ‘Take Me To The Mountain Dew Mountain’ opens with what can only be described as a groove, to which they then add a riff straight out of the Iommi handbook but where most bands would just take that and chug on through, not Naisian. Instead they grab the riff, give it a good shake and then lead it off somewhere dark to give it a solid beating. Fucking awesome.
Highlight of the record is the closing, genuinely creepily terrifying, eleven minute masterpiece ‘I Am Eustache Dauger’. This is an absolute monster of a track and showcases everything you need to know about Naisain; twitchy drumming, huge riffage, scary vocals, surprising changes of direction and superb playing.
As good as this record is, and believe me it’s very good indeed, I can’t help feeling the place to truly experience Naisian is in a small, sweaty room while they stand five feet away screaming in your faces, but if you can’t get to one of their live shows then ‘Mammalian’ is ample substitute.
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