Live Review: Ufomammut, Monolord, Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving, Dirac Sea

The blackened doom crawl of Dirac Sea made for an uncompromisingly savage start to the night, as it would've any night. Playing a little looser than on previous sightings, they appeared somewhat more confident on stage and their vocals and vast reverb seemed to echo on long after they'd downed tools.

Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving continue to tread a different path to that of their contemporaries, with hypnotic cascades of piano and a deft, melodic approach to drumming creating an otherworldly experience. Their guitarist seemed a little out of sync with the rest of the band at times, but it was more than compensated for by a dynamic performance, with the keyboard player waving his arms about his FX units as if trying to convene with undead spirits in search of answers from beyond. 

Arriving just in the nick of time from a delayed Melbourne flight, Swedish doom heavyweights Monolord quickly made friends with the instantly effective low-end grooves of Died A Million Times. Although not the most innovative metal band around (their debt to Sabbath and the likes of Electric Wizard is palpable), they are a band perhaps best enjoyed in the flesh as they delivered a muscular performance that was warmly received by the Rosemount Hotel brethren, in particular the classic delayed bass riff of Empress Rising.

Despite forming in 1999, tonight was the final date of Italian sludge cosmonauts Ufomammut's first Australian tour. Struggling through some technical problems initially, with band members expressively gesticulating at the sound desk for more of this and more of that, they gradually found their feet. Ufomammut's sound has set the bar at new heights (or should that be depths?) for sludginess and, at times tonight, it was so inconceivably oozy that it was hard to know where the notes were and the floorboards trembled so hard that no one could be sure they were still on solid ground. One of the night's best moments was the telekinetic tension between guitarist Urlo and bass-man Poia as they stared at each other across the stage, priming themselves to land the crashing opening note to Temple with brutal synchronicity, but props should also be extended to the headstrong, old school riffing of God and the rampaging groove of Hellcore. Tonight will go down as the night that Perth was truly doomed.