02.

Mastodon
Blood Mountain

Only the second metal album I bought that came out this year, Blood Mountain is also the second metal album in my top four. Mastodon are more recognisably ‘metal’ at first glance than Tool, but, like Tool, they take the genre so far beyond its boundaries and in so many directions that I wonder if they should better be classed as something more neutral, like ‘guitar-based heavy music’. Yet, unlike Tool, Mastodon never even come close to disappearing into a world of their own creation (or, in the case of Mars Volta, up their own arses). This is progressive metal of the most exciting and dramatic kind. After 2004’s exceptional Leviathan, I was unsure how they could improve. They have certainly done that.

Every track is full of brilliant ideas, and the album is, like Leviathan, a twisting beast, a journey that must be digested as a whole (piecemeal, admittedly, Mastodon are far less impressive). What is important is that they have changed – thus, there is a mixture of traditional shouty vocals, as on Leviathan, but this is coupled with singing (Brent Hinds has a great voice, which complements Troy Sanders’ howl brilliantly). They have gone for more guitar harmonies, and more complex solos, but shorter songs overall, something which gives the album a leaner, meaner quality than its predecessor. ‘Crystal Skull’ is based around an infectious looping guitar track, whereas ‘Sleeping Giant’ is a chunky rumbling song (a sleeping giant indeed): the metal grind is laced with acoustic guitar and haunting pinched guitar – and, as such, the song takes on a whole new, textured dimension. ‘Colony of Birchmen’ sounds like a more metal Queens of the Stone Age (but then, Josh Homme is on the track, so I guess that’s not surprising), and my personal favourite ‘Circle of Cysquatch’ shows how riffing should be done in a way that Metallica once managed, circa Master of Puppets.

It is not all plain sailing: one has to take the album title, the awful goat/wolf-man artwork and the idiot lyrics with a pinch of salt, or, perhaps, ignore them entirely. Such cliché metal features do little to separate a band whose music has elevated them way beyond the generic grime of the metal scene and into a completely different orbit. Still, these elements in themselves can be entertaining, and I don’t for a second think Mastodon take their lyrics or whatever too seriously (surely they can’t: eg, ‘changeless moonshines circle Cyclops image, a race of one-eyed beings all feared and shunned.’ I mean, what the fuck?).

A brilliant, brilliant album nonetheless. Coupled with Leviathan, I think Blood Mountain finally means that the mantle of best metal band on the planet has been passed (or rather taken) from Tool. Mastodon are the new kings of heavy music.