Review by Daniel for Mastodon - Blood Mountain (2006)

Don't ask me why but despite being a hhhuuugggeee fan of the records either side of it for many years now I'd never gotten around to checking out the highly celebrated 2006 third album "Blood Mountain" from Atlanta-based progressive sludge masters Mastodon until yesterday. Mastodon have always been a class act so I didn't expect anything other than a polished & accomplished piece of art & there's no question that that's exactly what they've delivered here too. This album appears to be the point in which the band took a turn away from their sludge metal roots & pointed their ship directly towards the progressive metal stratosphere as it's a lot more technical & complex than I remember their earlier material being & I don't think it technically qualifies for sludge status any more either as that's only a small portion of the holistic direction that "Blood Mountain" sees the band taking with stoner elements popping up almost as often. The album offers the usual highlights from drummer Brann Dailor who was a complete phenomenon at this point while it also falls victim to Mastodon's obvious Achilles heal in the vocal department which places a cap on the album's potential to reach the upper eschalons of my affection. In order to make a genuinely classic record you need to be able to write classic hooks &, for all it's splendour in the instrumental department, I'm just not sure "Blood Mountain" offers enough catchiness & memorability to be able to stand toe-to-toe with amazing records like "Leviathan" & "Crack The Skye" in that department. Brent & Troy do their best with the tools at their disposal however neither have the vocal chops to make this consistently solid outing into a truly special one. Still... there are few that can match Mastodon for ambition & execution in the instrumental department & the effortlessness with which they perform complex melodic acrobatics is beyond criticism. You can't really go wrong here if you're a fan of professionally produced & performed progressive metal music.

For fans of Baroness, Dvne & Intronaut.