THE HIDDEN HAND / WOOLY MAMMOTH (Night Letters) 10"/MCD
Before THE HIDDEN HAND had started their second European tour, Meteor City Records (Exile On Mainstream Records for Germany) have released this fine jewel which includes two brandnew tracks from THE HIDDEN HAND and WOOLY MAMMOTH, who are hailing from Wahington, DC. The disc kicks off with "Five Points", one of the two brandnew tracks of the 'Hand. Once again, Wino knows to convince with his typical outstanding playing and Bruce vocals are as good as we know it from the album. The song could have been also on the "Divine Propaganda" album and continues the heavy prog-path of the band. The next one is "Welcome to Sunshine", an instrumental track which is focused on Wino's spiritual guitarplay. Here's a very jazzy vibe within the song with a lot of twists and turns, and a few heavy riffs interwoven. Very good stuff and I'm looking forward the second album "Mother Teacher Destroyer".
I remember WOOLY MAMMOTH from their debut MCD "Ten Ton Baby" with their promising mixture of heavy doom-laden riffs and hardcore-like dynamics. This has been a few years ago and I wonder why this band don't come up with new material, but they constantly toured the US with a lot of other great bands. Now the wait is over and the band has recorded two brandnew tracks for "Nightletters". And I'm totally surprised how much this band had developed during the last years. "Mastercut + Charisma" ist the first one and instead of any hardcore-influences the band had opened their sound into a more emotional heavy direction, comparable to the legendary Only Living Witness f.e. And with the second track "The Prophet" this three-piece conquered my heart at once. Heavy powerful riffs are dominating this ass-kicking mid-tempo burner and like on the previous track the vocals are emotional with a charismatic edge. What about a full-length? "Nightletters" offers two great bands with excellent material and if you a fan of high-quality stuff, you shouldn't be without it. As a special gimmick for the German market, Exile On Mainstream has released this MCD in a wooden cigar box, limited to 777 copies!
(KK)