Blood Mountain

Prog-metal's best band returns with a record that may be even better than its monumental predecessor. Here, the songwriting technique is refined, built upon, and doubled up, pushing the ingredients from the band's last LP toward a more complex assault. It lands Mastodon in totally fascinating realms, with the entire band playing rich polyrhythms at a level that (for now) appears unsurpassable.

Mastodon is the rarest kind of metal band -- a really brilliant, creative one. No posing or nu-metal appeals for radioplay here.

And after their previous brilliant albums, they reached a new apex in "Blood Mountain." The Atlanta band spins songs about a beautiful, icy land -- played in a sonic eruption of kinetic instruments and some brilliantly mythic lyrics. It's a fiery, breathtaking ride.

It opens with rapid-fire drums and a squealing guitar, with a hoarse voice shouting, "The hero of the gods/The crossing of the threshold!" But the music soon uncoils into a fast-moving hard-rocker, full of blistering riffs and surreal lyrics about gods, shapeshifters, tyrants, heroes and "hulder folk and fairies."

Then we break into the tribal drums and blazing, sludgy riffs of "Crystal Skull," which is just begging to be air-guitared. And they don't let up in the songs that follow: the darkly epic "Sleeping Giant," metal with nimbly catchy melodies, sludgy hard-rock that blazes with muscular basslines, and expanses of roaring prog-metal that races by at light speed.

No ballads. No interludes. Sure, some of these songs open with some electronic squiggling, or maybe a mellow guitar melody, but they don't take long to explode into something totally different. The only exception is "Pendelous Skin," the very last song on the album -- it's an atmospheric blend of slow-burning rock played in a more alt-rocky style.

But up until then, it's nothing but rapid-fire, headbanging proggy-rocky metal. Sludgy and/or muscular riffs, smashing bass, and blindingly rapid drums that have to be heard to be believed -- and the whole thing is tightly woven out of different styles. And this is all to make story-songs with complex, intense melodies that can change in midsong -- from epic metal to chaos, and back again -- to reflect whatever is happening.

And the world Mastodon is exploring in this just reeks of fantasy and old legends -- nature gods, wilderness, icy lands, skulls, tree people, ivory towers, one-eyed monsters, more skulls, and ancient elms. I have no idea what they're trying to communicate, but their songwriting is definitely atmospheric ("A vast calm wilderness/The call to adventure comes/Lead and land atop this rock/Infinite path carved with unrivaled skill...")

Mastodon's "Blood "Mountain" is a devastatingly, frighteningly mythic experience, like wandering through an ancient legend. Here's hoping this band only gets better with time.

I can't imagine what kind of incredible zone Mastodon must of been in when they composed "Blood Mountain". This is how thrash metal is meant to sound- rampaging guitars; machine-gun percussion; and thundering bass and vocals. Amidst it's roaring rythm section there are even traces of progressive showmanship.

You can probably already tell by the awesome cover art- (a three-headed deer pouring a waterfall of blood from it's gut!?) Mastodon aren't for easy listening. As a matter of fact, just to get through to their tasty guitar riffs you'll have to wade through a tide of "bass-heaviness". Fortunately, while Sanders' vocal style on BM is harsh, he never resorts to throat singing.

Standout tracks include the epic "Sleeping Giant" the blaringly fast "The Wolf is Loose", as well as the downright demonic sounding "Crystal Skull". All in all, the record sounds very well put-together and solid. Basic rythms and time signatures are expanded and made more complex at times, but in spite of speed each song sounds remarkably smooth and steady.

While "Blood Mountain" holds basic trademarks of it's metal and hardcore roots, it still sounds fresh and original in it's own right. I bought this album months ago in October, but the more I listen to it, the better it seems to get. I wouldn't be surprised if someday in the distant future this is considered a classic.