MASTODON

Prepare your ears for what is possibly the greatest metal album you may ever hear. But with this release, I am now having a really hard time calling this band strictly metal anymore. They have tinkered and toyed with so many different styles in this album that my ears were often confused but delighted. The technicality and skill taken to create such a wonderful piece of art is beyond comprehension. And once again their cover art is breathtaking.

So much for signing on to a major label and selling out. Mastodon has continued right where they left off with Leviathan and exponentially improved upon all their previous endeavors. This has elements from Leviathan as well as Remission, but has gone way above and beyond each of those. The guitar work is much more intricate to the point of being mathematically excellent, the drumming (which I didn't think possible) got even better. Brann Dailor is far and away one of the best drummers in metal, let alone in music.

Like Leviathan, Blood Mountain has a premise. The songs follow a voyager in his search to find a "Crystal Skull", and tells of his adventures on the way.

"It's about climbing up a mountain and the different things that can happen to you when you're stranded on a mountain, in the woods, and you're lost," explained Dailor in an MTV news interview. "You're starving, hallucinating, running into strange creatures. You're being hunted. It's about that whole struggle."

Guest contributors to Blood Mountain include Scott Kelly of Neurosis and Mars Volta keyboardist Ikey Owens and frontman Cedric Bixler Zavala, who sings on "The Siberian Divide."

The intensity and ferocity of the overall record is cooled by softer interludes from time to time, and solos are laced throughout. With the excellence of the overall song compositions, solos are rarely necessary.

The vocals, as usual, fit in with the songs perfectly. There seem to be more clean vocals in this album, not a bad thing at all. A new style of clean vocals has been added to their repertoire
, a droany almost Ozzy sounding style.

From uplifting to devastating... soft to crushing, this album covers "epic" thoroughly. This is the first album I will ever rate 100/100, because it deserves it. Mastodon has created an album for the ages, a masterpiece that in my opinion is the best album to be released in years, of any genre. I dare you to argue, it's an argument lost in one listen.

I feel a little loss for words when trying to desribe this album, the only words that seem to escape my brain are "holy crap" and "wow, never heard a part like that before". I will leave the opinions up to the "musical experts" of the internet. All I know is this will not be leaving my CD player for quite some time.

Tracklist/Lyrics
1. The Wolf Is Loose 03:34 [view lyrics]
2. Crystal Skull 03:27 [view lyrics]
3. Sleeping Giant 05:36 [view lyrics]
4. Capillarian Crest 04:25 [view lyrics]
5. Circle Of Cysquatch 03:19 [view lyrics]
6. Bladecatcher 03:20

Label:
Warner Music

Official Site:
www.mastodonrocks.com

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Posted By:
cbrickhouse