Mammon’s Throne is forging its destiny.
For this third album, entitled My Body to the Worms, the band composed of Matthew Miller (vocals), Amesh Perera (guitar), Johnny Chammas (guitar, ex-Hybrid Nightmares), Sam Talbot-Canon (bass), and Nick Boschan (drums) chose Hammerheart Records.
Senseless Death immediately fills the audible space with massive, melancholic riffs typical of Doom Metal, punctuating them with pauses, vocal parts, and disturbing elements, then adding a touch of violence to incorporate its Death Metal influence. Leads remain dark and dreamy, even when the saturation cuts out, allowing the vocalist to take over with baritone vocals, yet the intensity returns and carries us towards Clandestine Unholy Rites, a heavy and mysterious interlude that ends with the sound of a bell, giving rise to fat stoner influences on Elixir. The track is a veritable block of imposing sound evoking Nosferatu and his bloody rituals, a theme that perfectly fits with the avalanche of heaviness that falls upon us, but which lasts only four minutes that seem to pass in an instant, joining Every Day More Sickened, a much longer track. Combining powerful vocals and mystical influences, the vocalist makes the rhythm much more lively, giving it almost dreamlike touches while letting us be carried away by the flow of leads before returning to its violence or offering a more intimate atmosphere, almost flirting with Black Metal at the end, before letting At The Threshold Of Eternity soothe us. The keyboards fill the whole, then the guitars take hold of our eardrums, returning to the piano before letting An Angel’s Grace take over and return to saturation, offering an interesting contrast between aggression and plaintiveness, offering an interesting dissonant nuance that doesn’t hesitate to slow down to become even more intoxicating. The final is even more chaotic, but it returns to reason with the first bars of Departed, the last track, which offers an interesting slowness that is at first soothing, then saturated, borrowing heavily from heavy metal before fully taking off and offering us an intense finale.
Doom is a very nuanced style, and Mammon’s Throne manages to exploit much of it, especially on My Body to the Worms. Heavy melancholy is obviously the first, but violence and gentleness are also part of it.
85/100
A few questions to Matthew Miller, vocalist for the Blackened Doom/Death Metal band Mammon’s Throne, about the release of their third album My Body to the Worms.
Hello and first of all, thank you very much for your time! Tough one to begin, how would you describe Mammon’s Throne’s music without using the words “Doom Metal”, “Melodic Doom”, “Doom/Death Metal” or any other subgenre?
Matthew Miller (vocals): Hello, Matt here. I’m the vocalist and lyricist and sometimes guitar riff contributor. Thanks for chatting with us. To describe our music in this way I’d call us “an anthology of humanity’s darkness through music”.
Mammon is the demon of greediness in the New Testament, referring to money, material wealth and stuff, how did you decide to pick this name for the band? How do you still link the name Mammon’s Throne to the music you play now?
Matt: We touch on a lot of the problems and failures in our society with a lot of our songs. They can often stem from people’s innate greed. The name was suggested by our drummer Nick, who came across the character of Mammon in a Spawn comic and we liked the biblical implications of the entity so it stuck with us. It’s a good blend of occult imagery and deeper meaning which compliments our music.
Mammon’s Throne is about to release its third album My Body to the Worms, how do you feel about it? Do you already have any feedback?
Matt: We’re very proud of how the album turned out. We took our time with it to make sure it met our vision. We also put in a lot of extra effort to promote it with music videos which were a new and enjoyable venture for us. We’ve had great feedback so far from the singles and music videos we’ve released and a few really positive early reviews. We can’t wait for people to get their hands and ears on the full thing.
How would you sum My Body to the Worms’ identity up in only three words?
Matt: Sprawling, grandiose and haunting. I think I need more words…
Mammon’s Throne is already reaching its eighth anniversary, how does the creation process happen within the band? Did you notice some changes between now and the band’s very first steps?
Matt: I didn’t even realise this myself. The time has certainly flown. When we started we only had a single guitar player. It’s been very freeing in the song writing process since Johnny joined the band and we can now play around with more harmonies and textures. The writing process usually starts with someone bringing in a riff to the rehearsal room and we jam out ideas till we end up with a finished song. We usually find that another member of the band will have just the riff to complement the initial idea. This hasn’t changed a whole lot since the inception of the band though we are starting to try to bring more fleshed out ideas to rehearsals.
Mammon’s Throne’ sound is made of a blend of Doom, melodies, and even Black, Sludge and Death Metal elements, which bands would you quote as your main influences? How did you manage to combine all your influences together to make them coherent?
Matt: If you ask different members of the band you’ll get a lot of different answers around influences. At the core we’re influenced by classics such as My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, Candlemass, Death and Bolt Thrower. We will pick parts that suit the direction we want the song to go in, whether that is influenced by the story the lyrics are telling or if we have a great idea for an outro and we want to build a road to that. We’re very conscious of making sure changes don’t sound jarring or non-cohesive but don’t find it too difficult to weave the different genres together.
What is your personal favorite song on My Body to the Worms, or maybe the hardest one to achieve?
Matt: I think we’re all in agreement that Everyday More Sickened is our favourite. Apologies to anyone in the band if I got it wrong. It was the last song to be written and was only finished the day before tracking of the album began. The sense of relief that we felt when we played the song all the way through for the first time was amazing. When recording it, this song actually went so smoothly and we all became very fond of it. It is a very long song with a lot of varied sections but we’re all big fans of each one of them and how the song progresses from one to another. This is an example of a time we had ideas we really liked for a beginning and an outro and mapped our way between them.
Where do you find your inspiration to create music and lyrics? Is there a concept on My Body to the Worms?
Matt: Lyrically I often write about personal mental struggles or problems I see in the world around me to get some of those difficult thoughts out there. It is cathartic for me. There are some central themes on the album such as the division and isolation of our terminally online world, but I wouldn’t say it’s a concept album. There’s also a lot of room for personal interpretation in our music so hopefully listeners let us know their own takes on the songs.
Do you think you improved yourself as a musician with this new record?
Matt: I always aim to try new things and push myself with our music. There’s a lot of varied vocal styles on the album and I’m always keen to employ multiple within a song when it makes sense to do so. I really enjoyed doing the baritone vocals on Departed and Senseless Death and they’re very vulnerable moments on the album. There’s not a lot to hide behind in those bits so it certainly took me outside my comfort zone.
My Body to the Worms is the first album you release under the Hammerheart Records banner, how is this partnership going? How did you get in touch with the label?
Matt: The partnership is going very well and we’re reaching a lot of new people with our music and talking to people from all around the world. We reached out to them initially and they were very excited to work with us on the album once they heard the final product and saw the artwork.
When looking at the internet, I found a few shows in Australia, your motherland, how do you conceive a live show for Mammon’s Throne? Are there any pre-show or post-show “rituals”, how do you feel on stage?
Matt: We love playing live and perform very regularly. We’ve had the opportunity to play with some incredible bands both international and local. We try to make our live shows intense and theatrical. We’re very conscious of our stage presence and tightness as a band and are constantly working to make our shows more and more immersive. My pre-show ritual is generally watching the other bands on the line-up and having a good time. I’m all about supporting our local music scene. When it’s my turn to take the stage I relish the opportunity and find it an incredibly enjoyable and cathartic experience.
There are also three shows scheduled in March and April to present My Body to the Worms, how do you get prepared for them? How did you decide which bands you will play with?
Matt: We tend to play with bands that we enjoy ourselves, and we also like having mixed lineups, so we’re not strict about playing with only Doom bands all the time. Our sound allows us to fit into a wide variety of lineups. For the Melbourne show we’re playing with Aquilus and Chief Whip who are both very varied yet hold a certain shared element that makes the lineup make sense as a whole. For the interstate shows we were asked by our friends in Malignant Aura if we’d like to do co-album launch shows with them as they also just released an incredible Death-Doom album, so the timing lined up and it made sense to put forward this very strong lineup.
Do you plan to play more shows? Maybe small tours, even outside of Australia?
Matt: Yes definitely, we have something exciting in the works for Australia that is still confidential. We’re also exploring our options to play overseas. We’ve done a tour in Japan before and that was an amazing experience and we’d love to keep playing to people outside of Australia.
What will come next for Mammon’s Throne? About music, live, maybe other projects on the way?
Matt: We’ve begun writing new music as we’d like to not wait too long to release another album so we can capitalise on the increased reach Hammerheart has afforded us.
Have you ever heard of the French Metal scene? Are there any bands you know and like?
Matt: Very much so, I’m a big fan of bands such as Alcest, Les Discrets, Regarde Les Hommes Tomber and of course Gojira to name a few.
Are there any bands you would love to play with? I let you create your dream poster with Mammon’s Throne and three other bands, even unrealistic answers are accepted.
Matt: We’re lucky to have already played with some incredible and influential bands but there’s definitely a few still on the bucket list for me. At the moment I’d go for Paradise Lost, Khemmis and Wayfarer as these are always in constant rotation for me currently.
Last and funny question: which dish would you compare Mammon’s Throne’ music with?
Matt: I’d be attacked by the rest of the band members if I didn’t say a HSP (“hallal snack pack”, an Australian fast food dish consisting of halal-certified doner kebab meat and chips, ed.). Non-Aussies might need to look it up however! Like our music, it is a very unique blend.
That was the last question for me, so thank you very much for your time and your music, last words are yours!
Matt: Thanks so much for the great questions. I enjoyed responding to them. Thanks also to everyone that has shown interest in our music so far and we hope you enjoy the album when it releases on Fri 13th of March! If you’re interested in checking out our music we have 3 music videos up at the moment for your entertainment.