My saviors of rocking metal. This third album should mean the acknowledgement for their quality and creativity after the metalworld-shocking Leviathan. A lot of people want to know if they can deliver yet another masterpiece, others are quite sure another one of their all-time favourites is about to enter their collection. I’m with the latter party.

I don’t even know where to begin, but I’ll give it a try. My history with Mastodon doesn’t go way back to the release of Lifesblood, it took a live show at the Dynamo festival to convince me to pay more attention to these dudes. Now I’m completely hooked to whatever they do, so this release is no exception.

The main sound has been set, rocking grooving riffs with dreamy soundscapes and goosebump arousing headbangriffs, accompanied by the busiest groove-drumming ever.. This one is no real exception, except for the undeniable presence of a more stoner-like sound instead of metal. The main songwriting style with that particular sound is a clash between the old Metallica and the under appreciated  Thin Lizzy, creating an impressive rocking masterpiece. Yes it truly is a Blood Mountain for me.

So musically it has gotten a bit quieter, but the sound can still be relaxing and dreamy like in ‘Sleeping Giant’ as well as devastating as in the opener ‘The Wolf Is Loose’ . But there’s also more room for experimenting, of which I am a big fan. The track ‘Capillarian Crest’  possesses a pioneering of semi-rock solo’s being used as a groove and it raises the hair in the back of my neck. Therefore it is my favourite track of the album, together with ‘Bladecatcher’, in which the most illogical rhythms are used with noises that sound like extremely distorted and fucked up vocals, without lyrics that is. And what about ‘Siberian Divide’ in which a Tool-like build-up soundscape transfers to a rock ‘n roll riff of which Tool hasn’t even heard of, like a friend of mine adequately put it.

Nothing but pleasure as you can tell from these three examples.

 

But that’s not everything yet. For all those in ecstasy already, there’s even more greatness! The vocals are finally no longer some sporadic rhythmic screams and questionable melodies, but there is some actual great singing on this record, that suits the music marvellously. On top of that there are guest performances present by the frontmen of The Mars Volta, Queens Of The Stone Age, and again Neurosis. And that Josh Homme is responsible for a really stupid hidden track, but I’ll wont go into that.

 

Man there’s just too much to mention, but not one thing about it is bad! Consider the artwork to be issued with this release next month and, yes… I’m gonna do it again…even though I didn’t plan it…but as I listen to it now again I realize they deserve no less than… a perfect score. As they tell you in Mortal Kombat; flawless victory.

PS The playtime includes twenty minutes of fastforwarding towards that hidden track, so it unfortunately doesn't last over an hour.