Monday 12 March 2018

Atomic Mold - Hybrid Slow Flood (Album Review)


Release date: 20th March 2018. Label: Electric Valley Records. Format: CD/DD/Vinyl

Hybrid Slow Flood – Tracklisting

Hypnosis
I Fall
Wood Line
Yellow Crocodile

Members

Antonio Bonizzato – Bass\Vocals
Marco Fila - Drums
Davide Marotta - Guitar

Review

Italian Psych Doom/Stoner Rockers - Atomic Mold - release their new album - Hybrid Slow Flood - via Electric Valley Records and it's quite a psychedelic heavy affair. The album contains four tracks. Two songs run under four minutes and the other two songs run for thirteen and nineteen minutes respectively.

Atomic Mold creates a heavy psychedelic doom/stoner based sound that is slowly becoming quite popular with bands such as Monolord and Throneless. That's not to say Atomic Mold don't create their own sound. Far from it. They do. As they play with a more distinctive heavier bass sound.

Opening track - Hypnosis - is a heavy sounding Doom/Stoner Metal offering with vocals drifting in and out. It's quite slow-paced at times but Atomic Mold create and exciting and eerie atmosphere. Maybe sounding like a more atmospheric Black Rainbows at times, this is very good song to open the album with.

As the next two songs (I Fall and Wood Line) sees Atomic Mold change the mood of the entire album for the next thirty two minutes. The vocals disappear and a heavier distorted psychedelic sludgy post-doom whatever atmosphere appears. The sound is quite chaotic at times with both of these tracks running for thirteen minutes and nineteen minutes each. Both songs follow the same structure as each other with Atomic Mold even adding moments of chaotic droned noises to unsettle the eerie atmosphere.

Wood Line is perhaps the best song on the album as its offers the most exciting and creative moments on the album. As Atomic Mold experiment with their sound and manage to bring in different sounding elements to the whole feel of the album. Nothing is what it seems on Hybrid Slow Flood especially from your first listen on the album.

You will need multiple listens to this album to fully understand it all. The music is superbly played with the distorted and droned out sounds keeping you on edge.

The final song - Yellow Crocodile - follows the same path as the epic two final tracks with Atomic Mold playing a more jam-based sound. Even though the song lasts under four minutes, Atomic Mold manage to create a wide range of different sounds within the short running time. Mainly this song being a standard Doom/Stoner Metal song with groove laiden Psychedelic riffs ending the album in a low-key fashion.

The production is handled superbly well. The vocals could have done with more volume. Even though they appear for a small amount of time on the album, there were parts that I couldn't really hear at all.

That minor complaint aside, Atomic Mold has created an album that definitely lives upto to its full potential. This album also proves why Atomic Mold is another great band from the Italian Doom/Stoner Metal Scene to fall in love with.

Excellent and Highly Recommended.

Words by Steve Howe

Thanks to Electric Valley Records for the promo. Hybrid Slow Flood will be available to buy on DD/CD/Vinyl via ElectricValley Records from March 20th 2018.

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