Atlanta's progressive metal quartet, Mastodon continues kicking ass and taking names on their fifth studio album. Produced by Mike Elizondo, the band delivers a majestic, modern metal album, driven by Brann Dailor's thundering drums and the dizzying guitar work of Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher. The snarl of the riffs wrapped around the explosive beat on murderous "Curl Of The Burl" almost makes, front man, Troy Sanders' metal-kissed melodic vocals feel like an afterthought, as he belts, "I killed a man because he killed my goat / I put my hands around his throat", amidst crunchy guitars.
Finger-bleeding fret work opens "Octopus Has No Friends", morphing into frantically spraying riffs encircling the shifty, dramatic tune. For all the buzzing riffs sawing their way through rolling beats on "All The Heavy Lifting", with Sanders demanding, "Just close your eyes / And Pretend that everything's fine", and classic metal chug of grimy riffs on soaring "Spectrelight", Mastodon is more interesting here when they bury treasure within the burly metal exterior. The swirling clusters of guitars tumbling around a frayed, rapid-fire beat on "Blasteroid" has a gooey southern rock core underneath the glistening layers of prog-metal roaring on top.
Frankenstein-inspired "Creature Lives" gets a more classic rock slant, complete with choir fuelled backing vocals and more elegant guitar, while the bluesy riffs of "Thickening" finds the band channeling their jazz influences for a restlessly shifting rhythm. Angular jabs of guitar on "Bedazzled Fingernails", the spacey solo in the middle of steadily sawing "Dry Bone Valley", and swirling creak of guitar winding through metal ballad "The Hunter" are all great reminders of the band's musical prowess on an album that rarely lets you forget. The album kicks the doors open with gleaming licks and livewire drums on foreboding "Black Tongue" and only lets up to pretty up their sound on the chilled closing ballad "The Sparrow", pushing the drizzled guitars in the distance a bit as if finally letting them get a well-earned breather.
