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Taking their name from the heaviest cloud found on our home planet, Mammatus harness instruments and amplifiers with the brave intent of transforming the natural beauty and massive fury that lies in the earth into acoustic energy. Using crude, self taught methods of instrumentation, they bang away for long periods of time employing ridiculously heavy riffs paired with harrowing widdly wah your face off guitar wankery, brain bending electric noodling, and ogre-esque drum bashing. Faintly through the haze a tale is told, the tale that never ends, of wizards and dragons, of swords and trees and mountains and fire. Of earth. Mammatus formed in the beginning of 2005 and played their first show at the silent planet in Corralitos on March 20. Since then they have played extensively in living rooms and dive bars in Santa Cruz, opened for more reputable bands in San Francisco, and toured the United States scraping for change. Along the way their performances have left many a dude and dudette with sore necks. In the spring of 2005 with no money and no label Mammatus recorded four songs in their makeshift garage studio using some cheapo computer junk. After jamming everything live, laying down some solos and vocals, and running everything back through the amps in the reverberant room multiple times, they came out with some righteous tunes clocking in at just under an hour. The Hawkwindy whoopdiedoos, Sabbathy riffering, and Sleepy feedback drones attracted the attention of Holy Mountain records in San Francisco and Rocket Records in the UK, who both released their self titled debut album on March 28, 2006. |
