BULL ELEPHANT "Bull Elephant"

BULL ELEPHANT

“Bull Elephant”

Talk about the elephant in the room, here it is. BULL ELEPHANT is one of those “mystery bands” where no information about members is available. Usually that’s a gimmick used by monk robe wearing gas mask faced black metallers, but this is nothing of the kind. I would tag BULL ELEPHANT as kind of a “prog-doom” or “prog-sludge” band.

There are definitely some interesting moments here, but it’s rather uneven over all. The band believes in a lot of peaks and valleys in their music, something that can work. But when the valley cuts all the power of the peak in mid-flow, it kind of hurts. Many of BULL ELEPHANT’s songs wobble from massive crushing doom riffs to clean proggy noodling. On the otherwise massive track “Winterfist”, a prolonged mellow break kills the momentum of the song dead.

But there are some killer, almost majestic moments here. The first two tracks “Bull Elephant” and “Constructs of Chaos” are a perfect mix of prog and doom, like a collision between MASTODON and HIGH ON FIRE. The vocals can be long piercing wails, grizzly growls or plaintive yelling. “Corrupted Truth” is two and a half minutes of bone-breaking grind that cuts loose with high velocity. And the lead guitar can really jam, too...there’s some fiery stoner/70’s-tinged shredding on last track “Dread Reactor”.

But you have to endure the constant swing between heavy and less heavy. If you’re cool with that, this is a really strong record. Add it to it some really bizarre lyrics about a voodoo priestess raising a...what else?...bull elephant from the grave. BULL ELEPHANT has got some kinks to work out, but there’s some intriguing sounds going down here.

BULL ELEPHANT