The Maharajas Ride the Wylde Mammoths 10″
Garage rock has always been a genre that stands in tribute to itself. From the originators of jagged rock’n’roll in the ’60s covering standards to the various retro reinventions, what makes for good garage often comes down to interpretation. It’s fitting then that one of Sweden’s longer-running crops of the ’90s garage revitalization (is it revitalization if the genre never truly goes away?) committed an entire slab of wax to one of the heavy-hitters of the late ’80s. The WYLDE MAMMOTHS were a Crypt Records act out of Stockholm, and this is ten of their tracks from contemporary garage heads the MAHARAJAS. It’s a loving tribute, and it would have to be, with scarcely a hair out of place. It ties together garage rock neatly in cross-generational gift wrapping, from deeply chiming ’60s rock worship to the modern era. The WYLDE MAMMOTHS’ Pete Maniette passed away in 2023, and it’s hard to think of a better memorial than tracks like “Run From Her” being brought back to life in technicolor by as tight a band as the MAHARAJAS. It almost feels like a labor of love for true heads only, but really it serves as a beautiful entrypoint not just to Maniette’s body of work but the history of garage rock in general.
