El Alter Del Holocausto – Acid Mammoth
Words: Marisa Adams
Photography: Artur Tarczymil
El Altar Del Holocausto
Next up, the stage was graced by a band whose name, at least in the biblical sense, means ‘altar of burnt offerings’, playing many tracks from their 2019 album -IT-: epic doomy instrumental post-rock with weighty themes and enveloping, exultant melodies.
Mournful refrains ascended like zephyrs until massive riffs gathered and churned around them, lifting them on vast wings to soar heavenward, transporting the listener on a cloud odyssey of majestic proportions.
Shrouded head to toe in white masks and priestly robes and bathed in liturgical red light, they all maintained throughout this incognito holy mission a fervently animated, transported passion as if they intended to take the entire venue to meet the deity they cast frequent gestures up to. The crowd seemed fully on board with this idea, responding exuberantly.
I abandoned all attempts to take notes at some point, and if it had gone on much longer, I might have had to send this review through a medium. Their closing moments involved one or two of them parting the audience like Moses at the Red Sea and going down into it, moshy waters flooding back in to consume them. Electrifying!
Acid Mammoth
This disarming Greek 4-piece delivered some crushingly heavy doom under multicoloured lights with witchy vocals and pummelling drums. Their second song was inspired by Conan the Barbarian and was suitably annihilating, and they continued in this vein, deploying riffs like a gigantic mining machine working away at a rock face, the vocals grinding away like its clashing gears.
This was an enormous sound, with lots of complex guitar work from the father of the singer/guitarist. Progressing into their set with ever heavier tread, psych-tinged smoke poured off the machine as it was pushed to its limits and the cliff was slowly consumed, boulders tumbling from its face, crushed to dust as the huge contraption passed over them and burrowed further in.
In between songs, the singer/guitarist told us that they were all enjoying the non-existent summer here immensely and that the freshness of the rain after 40-degree heat in Greece was ‘like paradise’. He then invited us to ‘check out this riff’, and they thanked us for our marvellous weather and the organisers for their fantastic festival by reducing the rest of the mountain to rock flour.
Some tectonic destructive force from some warm, affable people. This was one of the surprises of the festival for me; it was a thoroughly enjoyable live experience, and the rest of the audience seemed to agree.
Slomosa
Headlining the Friday were Norway’s Slomosa, replacements for Nebula, whose bassist had very sadly died. The new headliners and the audience collectively paid a storming tribute to him partway through the set.
This is the second time I’ve seen this band live, the first time from a long way back, so I made sure I got close to the stage, and to say I was looking forward to this was an epic understatement. They opened with a heavy, swampy, atmospheric new song not yet released, 2023 single Cabin Fever and congratulations on our election result, before continuing with a mix of new material and songs taken from debut album S/T. This included a new song with the female bassist on the main vocals, which sounded great.
To say they know how to put on a show doesn’t really capture it. There’s some wild chemistry at work here with this 4-piece, some sort of high-octane juice running through the veins of the beastie. Their music ranges from swirling hypnotic doomy blues to heavy deserty bounciness, with ridiculously catchy riffs and irresistibly singalongable lyrics delivered with Caterpillar bucketfuls of zesty attitude.
It somehow manages in faster moments to be simultaneously both horizontally laid back and feverishly energetic, something which is amped up stratospherically in their incredibly enjoyable and atmospheric live performances – with added entertaining banter in between songs for good measure. We spoke to a few people who had come mainly – or even just – to see them.
The crowd were deafening in their appreciation, howling back the lyrics from the second song onwards and bounding around with gigantic smiles, making new friends on the way around the floor and acquiring a mascot horse head mask during Horses which introduced itself to the band and got about the place impressively on several pairs of legs.
They went for the rampantly infectious grooves like a collective animal, with the floor of the Garage turning into a giant pinball table as the quartet up on the smoky stage worked its wizardry on the shooter, seeming blown away – and delighted – by the result. After an hour or so of noisy, friendly, happy, sweaty abandon, they and the audience were glowing like neon.
Hands down, it was one of the best sets I’ve ever experienced – and if that’s not saying much, the friend I was with, who has probably seen thousands, agreed when he could speak around his enormous grin.
We made our way home amped and beaming and looking forward to a nearly full day’s festivities on Saturday, with bands starting earlier, at 2 pm.
