When
Mastodon
first reared its bucktoothed head in 2001 with the
Lifesblood
EP, the scriveners of
metal
took note: here was something promising. With 2002's
Remission
, the promise was kept; it was a debut that puzzled and excited listeners with an amalgam of styles:
hardcore punk
's intensity and angular chops;
death metal
's squealing, complex guitars; a heaviness usually the province of
sludge
and
doom metal
; and drumming that risked its integrity and ventured into the territory of wank by courting
progressive rock
jazz
. (Has anyone other than
Magma
's
Christian Vander
dared to marry percussion this complex to
this extreme?) Other bands have flirted with this territory, most notably
Dillinger Escape Plan
, but their attack always had one foot firmly planted in
punk
's messy metalcore backyard.
, however, are leveraging with all hooves staked in the murky underworld swamp of extreme
.
We are now out of
and into 2004's highly anticipated follow-up,
Leviathan
, which again puzzles and will surely alienate one old fan for every two new admirers it gathers in its net. The naysayers will note that too many concessions were made on
in order to gain a wider audience, that the production is too polished and the vocals too melodic, and they are right. On
there was a claustrophobic paranoia, a suffocating heaviness like an elephant's heel pressing on someone's chest; its vocals were the raw
hardcore
screams of an anarchist drill sergeant.
digs out of the boot camp stampede and seeks out even heavier environs, going where few bands have gone before, straight down into the ocean. However, the studio polish of producer
Matt Bayles
that will be agonized by underground purists turns out to be just surface glare. Lurking beneath is an expansiveness more massive than anything found on the shores. The sound on
seems bottomless and infinite in the best possible way: it's not a dip in the pool; it's a headlong cliff dive into deep waters.
There are remarkable no-they-didn't, yes-they-did changes littering
like chum in shark territory.
"Megalodon"
moves from angular
post-hardcore
to chugging
boogie
thrash
with deceptive ease, turning from one to the other with a
Southern rawk
guitar lick sure to have
Duane Allman
raise a bony hand in deathly devil-horned approval. It's not just that the sound is now "oceanic," either;
has always had a tendency to rehash the same dark themes and few bands have the wherewithal to attempt to broaden that vision.
may not be an out and out concept album, but it's awfully close and thank god they didn't choose anything as cheesy as a blind kid playing pinball. Instead,
's chosen guide is
Moby Dick
, and a good portion of the lyrical themes on songs like
"Blood and Thunder,"
"I Am Ahab,"
"Aqua Dementia,"
"Seabeast"
are based on
Herman Melville
's dystopian waters. It's a good fit with the music, too. Filtered through
Melville
's spyglass, the watery tales and creatures of
are even more paranoid and intense than the more terrestrial
. Those who choose to follow
into the sea will surely agree. ~ Wade Kergan