If you’re thinking to yourself, “Why is Mammoth releasing their debut twice?” Maybe you’re even thinking “Who the hell is Mammoth WVH?”

Well, let me tell you. The WVH stands for Wolfgang Van Halen… no, not that Van Halen. It’s the late Eddie Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang (don’t we all wish we had a cool name like that?)

On Nov. 11, Wolfgang, or Wolfie for short re-released his debut album but included three new tracks to include at the end of the record, assumably as it was intended to be.

Mammoth includes Wolfgang on lead guitar, Jon Jourdan on rhythm guitar, Ronnie Ficarro on bass, Garrett Whitlock on drums, and Frank Sidoris from Slash’s solo project featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators on guitar as well.

I will say before we start, that my opinions might be swayed a tiny bit because before I even listened to this record the first time around, I saw them live at Toads Place on tour with Dirty Honey last March, so take it with a grain of salt if you will.

The 58-minute record kicks off with “Mr. Ed.” This song is the perfect song to kick off a record, it’s a hard rock masterpiece, that contains a great driving rhythm from Whitlock which is what I enjoy most about this song. I never really knew of Van Halen could really sing and I found out from this song that this kid has the pipes that make a singer great.

The next track that enjoyed was track five, “Resolve.” This song was surprisingly not a single because I think this song is one of the highlights from the record. It is more of a ballad-style song. It’s a hard rock ballad with acoustic guitars, and a quieter drum section but electric guitar and bass that is still present in the foreground along with WVH’s vocals. This song also proves that WVH has a beautiful voice for all different styles of rock, whether it be a traditional hard rock song or a balled, whatever the song calls for, WVH has it.

In between some great songs like “Mammoth,” “Circles,” and “The Big Picture,” listeners will find themselves at track 10, “Think It Over.” 

This is without a doubt my favorite song on the entire record. When I saw it performed live, there was just so much energy on stage and it’s great to see that energy in the studio as well. With some lyrics like ‘just wake up, not everything will be this tough… why can’t I move on,” one would assume that maybe it’s about heartbreak or a woman. Other fans will question if this is actually about Wolfgang’s father, Eddie who died unexpectedly on Oct. 6, 2020, and floored fans all over the world, myself included. If there was any song that fans should without a doubt listen to on repeat, it would be this song, hands down.

Immediately following “Think It Over” is track 11, “You’re To Blame.” This song is the opposite message and tone of the song before it. With lyrics like “No one but yourself to blame fought so hard but nothings gonna change” this time it could be taken in the sense that this is written about a toxic relationship and one that has gone rather sour. 

This was another song that absolutely floored me when I heard it live and then was shocked that the studio version is also identical to the live version. This band is tight, from the vocals to the rhythm section of Whitlock, Jourdan, and Ficarro, they are an extremely tight group.

The two added-on songs from the deluxe version that enjoyed were track 15, “Walk & Talk,” and track 16, “As Long as You’re Not You.” Like every other song on the record, lyrically they’re good, musically they’re amazing and there wasn’t a moment where I was on the fence about whether I’m enjoying this or not. From the first note they drew me and forced me to listen, they’re awesome.

If you can’t tell by this review, I really have nothing negative to say. There are clearly songs I enjoyed more than others and there are songs that I didn’t entirely love, but as a record as a whole, I would say I extremely enjoyed this record. I only see bright things ahead for Mammoth WVH.

For the fourth time this weekend, here are The Singer’s Thoughts:

1. Mammoth WVH is a great band, they’re one of the best new bands that have come around in a long time. WHV has so much experience from touring the world with Van Halen when he was younger that he has had the chance to grow as a musician faster than most would this early in his career
2. The fact that they’ve toured with bands that have become popular in the last five years like Dirty Honey and have sold out speaks for itself. They’re so popular that they’ve opened for Guns N’ Roses (check out my GNR “Use Your Illusion” review here) and now Alter Bridge says that they’ve gained so much traction and such a small amount of time that it’s only a matter of time before they play bigger venues.
3. Their debut record is an extremely good record that they can only go up from here and my expectations for their sophomore record are extremely high. Their debut record was so strong with great material that it will be a challenge to top it but I have a feeling they won’t have much of a problem doing that.

Overall Grade: 8/10