By Jim Shea
Nowadays, it takes a lot for an album to impress someone to a point where it’s both a memorable music CD as well as quite an original album. Mastodon has accomplished both as Leviathan proves to be album of the year.
Based out of Georgia, the sound of Mastodon relies on a unique blend of Southern rock and heavy metal. They received attention last year after the release of their single, “March of the Fire Ants” followed by the release of their album, Remission. It wouldn’t be long for Mastodon to become an underground hit and become Relapse’s hottest seller for 2003. Fans demanded more from this lively act, so Mastodon answered with Leviathan.
While a good portion of Leviathan pays tribute to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, this album shapes up to be Mastodon’s best ever. The band wins over the audience because of their delivery and execution throughout Leviathan. The first half of the album-except for tracks like “Blood & Thunder” and “Iron Tusk”-won’t impress the common music listener that easily until they’ve reached the second half where things really pick up.
“Megalodon” is a very likeable track because it separates into two parts making it one epic of a song. Speaking about epics, Mastodon creates one with the track “Hearts Alive” as the song clocks in over 13 minutes, yet still manages to grab the listener’s attention.
What’s exciting about Mastodon is that Southern metal and rock fans can immediately get into Mastodon. Whether you’re a fan of Corrosion Of Conformity, Lynyrd Syknyrd, Crowbar, Ted Nugent, Down or Deep Purple, you’ll find no trouble at all diving into Mastodon and their Leviathan album. Now what about those of you who are not fans of the bands mentioned above? No problem at all, seeing that Leviathan doesn’t limit towards non-metal fans.
Guitarists Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher have done an extremely good job in following through each and every song on Leviathan with their guitar playing. Since the guitars in the album are great, Leviathan is loaded with originality as you can hear it from the blistering, hard-hitting “Island” to the acoustic “Joseph Merrick.”
Do not ignore Leviathan as this is one of the best albums of 2004. That’s saying a lot since you’ve probably been littered by dozens and dozens of albums this year. Leviathan displays how talented Mastodon is without exhausting its resources. By now, most rock and metal bands are probably taking note on how to make a successful album when they listen to Leviathan.
