Slomatics – Atomicult (Majestic Mountain Records)
For all their talent, Slomatics have always flown somewhat under the radar.
Rewind to 2011, and they were teaming up with an embryonic Conan for a crushing split.
Jon Davis and co. went on to take their caveman doom across the pond, and dominate battle jackets at every sludge gig from Liverpool to Ljubjlana.
Slomatics stayed closer to home. The spotlight never seemed to fall on the Belfast trio. But their increasingly cosmic excursions just kept pouring out, gifting us albums like 2014’s Estron and 2019’s Canyons – obelisks built from star swallowing, planet boring riffery.
And the band’s evolution seemed to take a leap on 23’s Strontium Fields.
New horizons were explored. Sonic pathways opened up. A weight was lifted, so songs like Time Capture could emerge. There were more delicate touches to savour. I, Neanderthal’s bludgeon was tempered by layers of astral keys. With Dark Futures was more Live At Pompeii than Live Evil.
Atomicult is a natural successor to that album. It’s evident as soon as Obey Capricorn announces Slomatics’ re-entry and Phantom Castle Warning follows as a hypnotic doom hymn anchored by vintage synthwork. The hard-driving, hypnotic Auto-Skull is almost anthemic, while Physical Witching drifts into a psychedelic haze (while still retaining an aura of menace). Night Grief? It hark back to the band’s early Melvins worship, but midway, a rift opens and the starlight shines through the sludge.
But what’s truly startling about this work, and its predecessor, is the emotional depth of Marty Harvey’s vocals. His melodies come to the fore on Atomicult, making Biclops a towering altar of doom that could grace any genre classic. And his delicate tones gift Relics – in many ways a companion piece to Time Capture – with startling beauty. It’s a song Slomatics have been building up to for years. It’s been worth the wait.
In a vast canon that encompasses eight full-lengths, plus 12 EPs and splits, Atomicult has some hefty competition.
But it’s undoubtedly a career high for the trio.
This is a record of great intelligence, a work as majestic as the night sky itself, and a testimony to Slomatics’ increasingly seductive songcraft.
