A big reason why music is the drug of choice for so many is the way it can simultaneously mix contradictory emotions. It makes for an intoxicating overload. Flora Hibberd’s new album, ‘Mammoth’, lives up to its name in sounding huge and offering a classic example of how elements that might usually be associated with differing styles – brass, modular synths, pedal steel – can complement each other and bring a tingling sense of emotional excitement. Whereas Hibberd’s more folkish 2025 release, ‘Swirl’, showed distinct promise and had some sublime moments like ‘Jessie’, her new album is heavily art-pop flavoured, consistently excels and is packed with potential singles.
‘Mammoth’ is set in the past, present and future, embracing the weirdness of hypermodernity. Hibberd peers into the apocalypse and post-apocalypse, history and pre-history, making for a compelling voyage accompanied by tunes that are simultaneously lush and icy. It makes an excellent start with ‘Bowling Ball’ which sounds simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic, the brass, pedal steel and synths combining gracefully with Hibberd’s voice. After an initial rebuff, ‘Silent Movie Baby’ goes all Greta Garbo with its desire to be quiet. Emma Broughton’s flute line is melodic gold as the synths and brass swell while Hibberd gets the ghosts in line.
Hibberd’s voice has hints of Cate Le Bon to it; alluring, commanding, sometimes slightly distant but also vulnerable. She has an array of backing vocalists to add further layers, amongst them Sufjan Stevens. He appears on ‘Perfect Ripple’ which has a time travel element with its visits to the hundred-year café, imitation indicating desire and images that conjure classic literature with references to riding a braided horse, fragile fronds and perfect ripples on a green pond. The other song on which Stevens features is ‘Ache’ which bounds in on a buoyant synth fanfare with an even bigger 1980s style booming drum sound courtesy of Lucien Chatin yet the song’s dynamics are such that the most effective moment is carved out when the huge sounds drop out to leave Hibberd in contemplative mode.
The impressive cast of backing vocalists also include This Is The Kit’s Kate Stables who appears on a couple of numbers including ‘Deltaplane’ which views the world’s open planes from a hang-glider. It is broodily slow, allowing its mood to be set by Stew Crookes’s pedal steel and Victor Claass’s barren desert landscape film soundtrack guitar. Hibberd’s long-drawn-out note, extending the first word of the line “out in the realms I am having sensation” is memorable and atmosphere enhancing.
Ben Lanz has a considerable role in shaping ‘Mammoth’. In addition to producing the album, he plays modular synth, keyboards, piano and brass. The production has some very neat touches such as the way SOS style stabs reminiscent of ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’ appear on ‘Perfect Ripple’ and later the song briefly breaks down into a glitchy drum pattern.
‘Mammoth’ is indisputably a pop album, never more so than on the synth and piano led ‘Mythic Figure’ which again features Stables and has such a fantastic chorus, full of angels, faith and desire, that it is fully justified in repeating it couple of times with a few adjustments at the song’s end. Even though it gives the album its title, the word “mammoth” only appears once on the titular track, a reference to mammoth souls. It is a humongous pop song from its opening surging brass and twinkling synths, through both chiming and twanging guitar lines, all rounded off with some “la la la” lines. The chorus of “why flee the feeling / does she not give her love?” causes a flutter with its combination of enigma and emotion.
‘Shelley’ is another of the poppiest tunes, a liquid melody slipping down ever so easily alongside slices of pedal steel. A song that conjures a string of Shelleys, be they Mary, Percy, Duvall or (probably in my mind only) Shelly Tambo from the Alaskan TV community of ‘Northern Exposure’. With candlelight, fevers and black eyes, it is hugely evocative. In contrast, ‘Dew Pond’ is a slow song, country-tinged with pedal steel to the fore. The way in which it blends with brass is especially appealing. Her lines “I think beautiful thoughts just for you / and plunge my limbs in your water” are beguiling and slightly bewildering.
‘Mammoth’ ends with its one non-Hibberd composition, the traditional song ‘Hares on the Mountain’ popularised by Shirley Collins. It is, though, given a contemporary revamp with introductory broken beats and a distinctly independent, feminist moral in its concluding lines, “oh the young men are given / to frisking and fooling / so I’ll leave them alone / and return to my schooling.”
In its entirety, ‘Mammoth’ is everything I could want from a pop record. It is hook-ladened, emotionally rich yet mysterious, working more on the subconscious than the intellect, a well-paced collection of ten songs of phenomenally high standard peppered with enticing voices and varied instrumentation. Aptly enough, it is mammoth.
Flora Hibberd: Mammoth – Out 16 October 2026 (22twenty)
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
