Mastodon - Leviathan (2004)

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Mastodon - Leviathan (2004)

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With an ageless magnificence and rich musical imagination, Mastodon unleash Leviathan, an unabated testimonial to the band's earthshaking ability to rock. Their thundering musical muscle, talent and vast sea of ideas triumphantly unite on Leviathan, delivering heavy, organic music that melds exhilarating ambitiousness with a well-honed accessibility.

I actually began listening to Mastodon when Remission was just released, and the band had most certainly garnered some attention, but nothing substantive and nothing they can carve a career out of. Remission was everything I wanted in a modern heavy metal album - it was fast, truculently defiant, fast and above all - the riffs just kicked ass. Metal had, in some ways, begun dying out for me. The first thing that got me to start listening to this album was the artwork. Mastodon have a reputation for releasing brightly colored covers. This album has, by far, the best artwork I have ever seen on a heavy metal record. I confess to not really understanding what it means, I know there is a strong reference to Herman Melville's Moby Dick, but the artwork as a whole is beyond majestic - it is something I am not accustomed to seeing coming out of a heavy metal band. Onto the actual music on this record. Now that I've approached it with an open ear, I can make a far more convincing case as to why this is something you should purchase. First of all, this is most certainly a very raw but refined record. Mastodon have always had clear, unbelievably good production for a band that played music this heavy - but this is some of the best recording I have heard from them, even if it is a little chaotic. The guitar sounds harsh and pierces the ear, and unlike Remission, the bass is completely audible. Also unlike Remission, Brann Dailor doesn't completely dominate the music. Remission lacks one thing that is so important to rock music, structure, and in part this was perpetrated by the virtuosic, emphatically elaborate drumming. However, sometimes you just wished Brann could hold a beat, and on this record he most certainly does so. Some songs do remind you heavily of the way Remission was written, "Island" being the best example of this, but the songs have a conventional pattern, rather than the youthful exuberance which carried the band through their earlier material, there is real maturity here. It is still quite raw heavy metal, but reserved and intelligible. There is a drawback to this, the record might not offer the same level of complexity that some fans might have expected, and a certain element of predictably lurks within, but nothing redundant. In fact, because the band have composed such brilliant riffs, alternating vocals and tight melody - the record never gets boring - but you need several listens to truly appreciate it. The singing here is another notable departure from Remission, where the emphasis was on brutality rather than melody. Songs like "Naked Burn", "Blood and Thunder" and "Seabeast" have some down to earth, clean vocals which sound like something out of a hard rock record, a most sincere and positive change on this record - and reflects a deeper philosophy the band seemed to have; balance. On Remission, everything was fast paced or heavy, whilst here they've diversified significantly - it is definitely more accessible, but by no means a commercial record. To conclude this review, this is a must have record for any genuine heavy metal fan. Remission was a classic, unbelievably genuine and brilliantly written album - but its not for everyone. This record broadens the horizons for Mastodon, and is certainly geared towards incorporating numerous traditional elements of heavy metal which have made this band the best modern metal group there is.

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