Mammoth Rider

Excerpt: "Saturday, March 18th, there’s a free DIY metal show happening at the Döner Bistro in Leesburg, Virginia. The venue is starting to host regular metal shows on the 3rd Saturday of every month and this weekend’s line up includes the brand new stoner doom band Mammoth Rider along with the bands Druid Stone, Skomucon and Downe Lands. Hopefully they can get a decent turn out at this event and they venue will continue hosting more and more local metal bands there every month. More info on this show can be found on the Facebook event page. - DC Heavy Metal

Yes, the mighty Mammoth has risen from extinction, drawn its first breath, and now comes trampling across the Blue Mountain Ranges in the shape of a ground-shaking, groove-trodden, thrash-churning, stoner-smokin’ beast that is Virginia’s very own Mammoth Rider. Dance Of The Oxen is their first track to be released, and damn, what a breath of fresh smokey air it is!

January blues are well and truly cast aside with Dance Of The Oxen. Andy, Shawn, Nick and Jamie have assembled to bring us a track that is literally bursting at the seams with groove, vivacity and ridiculous energy. Opening with a spoken sample that firmly nails their colors to the mast, the riffs erupt, and open up into a thrash inspired onslaught that is heavy with heft and power. Crossing genres and styles with ease, the boys have most definitely found their groove and literally nail us to the rafters with their guitar-chugging swagger crossed with soaring acrobatics, and all orchestrated under the influence of that funky bass and those crashing percussions, that attack in waves. Gravelly vocals with a distinctive and ferocious tone, spit out the lyrics with great intent and gusto, rounding off a track that is ripped in old school doom rock and is at the same time, flexing its modern musical muscle.

One to watch?, most certainly. You can’t help but feel good after listening Mammoth Rider. I cannot wait to hear more! - The Smashing Skull Sessions

You like Mammoth Rider? Their later work was a little too creatively conflicted for my tastes. But when Dance of the Oxen was created in ‘22', I think they really came into their own, lyrically and completely sober. The whole album has a psychadelic, genre-altering sound, and a new trip of melodic after-tones that really gives the songs a big boost. They’ve been compared to The Sword, but I think McComas and his fellow riders, performed best in their respective bands that never existed.

In ‘23' the Riders are set to release this, their eponymous 2nd debut banger: Spirit Science, their most accomplished attempt at music. I think their undisputed masterpiece is “Wizards Cove”, a song so catchy, most people probably don’t listen to the lyrics because it doesn't exist yet. But they should, because it’s not just an underrated coalescence of doom, stoner, and thrash metal, it’s also a authentic telling of experience, a reflection of the cosmic waves witnessed, and utter shock of what reality truly is from a bunch of dads just trying to make some tunes.

Hey James Hetfield - Franz Esquivel