MASTODON - Leviathan (2004)
Relapse Records
1. Blood And Thunder
2. I Am Ahab
3. Seabeast
4. ísland
5. Iron Tusk
6. Megalodon
7. Naked Burn
8. Aqua Dementia
9. Hearts Alive
10. Joseph Merrick
Long live the riff! People do strange things with the term metal, calling all-acoustic folk albums metal, or some techno mumbo jumbo with no guitars whatsoever metal just because the group once made a black metal demo in 1987, or any number of oddities. But it all comes down to the riff. If there is no riff, it just ain't metal, son. So you can call MASTODON hardcore or postpunk or waterstuff or whatever you want, but at the end of the day Leviathan is chock full of countless riffs, and that makes it metal.
Leviathan is an album that rarely lets up, but is not exhausting like so many nonstop albums can be. There is plenty of variety in the riffs and the drums are almost speech-like in their delivery. Brann Dailor is certainly an expressive drummer, and will likely go unappreciated by the masses because he plays in "just" a metal band. The clean vocals help carry the not-harmonic-yet-not-atonal sound of MASTODON into accessibility, which is where the whole water theme really shines. The long glissando clean vocals are quite aqueous, and certainly pull the complete package together, as on tracks "Seabeast" and "Naked Burn." Unfortunately the growled vocals come into play a little too often and bring the whole affair down a notch. I'm not opposed to harsh vocals, and I especially enjoy them if they are used along with clean vocals, as with this album or an old EDGE OF SANITY release. But those on Leviathan, in a word, suck. They are not necessarily poorly executed, rather they just do not fit the mood of this album at all and become the glaring tedious aspect toward the later tracks. If the rest of the album relied more on clean vocals like the above mentioned tracks do, this release would be much stronger. Then again they are hardly the focal point, so they don't get too much in the way of the real meat on this bone: the riffs.
According to a large chunk of the metal (and a bit of the non-metal) media, Leviathan was THE album of 2004. There is no question that it is good, but I never thought it was amazing. It may be a case of too high expectations as I didn't hear it until the press had already praised their song, but perhaps not because generally I'm able to enjoy an album based on its merits alone. Either way, this is certainly a solid offering and those looking for real metal and real riffs should definitely apply.
8/10
Relapse Records
1. Blood And Thunder
2. I Am Ahab
3. Seabeast
4. ísland
5. Iron Tusk
6. Megalodon
7. Naked Burn
8. Aqua Dementia
9. Hearts Alive
10. Joseph Merrick
Long live the riff! People do strange things with the term metal, calling all-acoustic folk albums metal, or some techno mumbo jumbo with no guitars whatsoever metal just because the group once made a black metal demo in 1987, or any number of oddities. But it all comes down to the riff. If there is no riff, it just ain't metal, son. So you can call MASTODON hardcore or postpunk or waterstuff or whatever you want, but at the end of the day Leviathan is chock full of countless riffs, and that makes it metal.
Leviathan is an album that rarely lets up, but is not exhausting like so many nonstop albums can be. There is plenty of variety in the riffs and the drums are almost speech-like in their delivery. Brann Dailor is certainly an expressive drummer, and will likely go unappreciated by the masses because he plays in "just" a metal band. The clean vocals help carry the not-harmonic-yet-not-atonal sound of MASTODON into accessibility, which is where the whole water theme really shines. The long glissando clean vocals are quite aqueous, and certainly pull the complete package together, as on tracks "Seabeast" and "Naked Burn." Unfortunately the growled vocals come into play a little too often and bring the whole affair down a notch. I'm not opposed to harsh vocals, and I especially enjoy them if they are used along with clean vocals, as with this album or an old EDGE OF SANITY release. But those on Leviathan, in a word, suck. They are not necessarily poorly executed, rather they just do not fit the mood of this album at all and become the glaring tedious aspect toward the later tracks. If the rest of the album relied more on clean vocals like the above mentioned tracks do, this release would be much stronger. Then again they are hardly the focal point, so they don't get too much in the way of the real meat on this bone: the riffs.
According to a large chunk of the metal (and a bit of the non-metal) media, Leviathan was THE album of 2004. There is no question that it is good, but I never thought it was amazing. It may be a case of too high expectations as I didn't hear it until the press had already praised their song, but perhaps not because generally I'm able to enjoy an album based on its merits alone. Either way, this is certainly a solid offering and those looking for real metal and real riffs should definitely apply.
8/10
