b r a n d o n

Blood Mountain is Mastodon's third full-length; given that it is their major-label debut, there was much great (and predictable) worrying among the fan base that they were about to sell out. The initial reviews seemed to lay such concerns to rest, as most reviewers seemed to believe Blood Mountain was as powerful and innovative as the band's near-classic first two albums, Remission and Leviathan. Unfortunately, my impressions are rather different. While Blood Mountain is hardly a "sellout" in any sense of the word, it's undeniable that Mastodon have changed their sound around considerably for this album. The vocals are cleaner than ever; a lot of the chunky juggernaut riffs have been replaced with clean, speedy soloing; the production is crystal-clear and loud; and the overall sound has moved away from hardcore/thrash and more towards (dare I say it) wanky technical/prog-metal. Most of all, though, the songwriting just doesn't seem up to snuff compared to the first two albums: there are far fewer memorable riffs and melodies (the only one that really sticks with me is the soaring guitar solo in "Sleeping Giant"), far fewer moments of building-leveling power, and far too much of a passing resemblance to (brace yourself) current-day Dream Theater. These guys probably want to tear me a new one for comparing them to Dream Theater, but seriously, any number of these songs — take "Capillarian Crest" and "Bladecatcher," for two — devolve into super-fast technical picking that, for me, comes uncomfortably close to John Petrucci wanking away. Mastodon still kicks a lot more ass than most modern metal bands out there; but with the newfound love of aimless riffery and goofy stunts like the processed vocals in "Circle of Cysquatch" (which are just too ridiculous not to mention), they're losing a lot of cred with me. In the end, the aforementioned "Sleeping Giant" is probably the only song off of this album that I'll ever listen to on a regular basis. I thought it was great that Mastodon went kind of prog-metal on Leviathan, but they've taken it a bit too far this time around. review by Brandon Wu — 11-11-06 —