Mastodon - Leviathan

Band: Mastodon
Album: Leviathan
Genre: Sludge Metal/Progressive Metal
Release Date: August 2004
Length: 47 minutes
Tracks: 10
Country of Origin: United States

It's fucking heavy, and I like that.
It's based loosely one of my favorite books, Moby Dick, and I like that.
It gives me seasickness, and I fuckin' like that.

This album is a very sludge-influenced album with such a progressive twist.  With it's fairly quick pace that seems to roll very choppily, yet regularly, it makes you feel like you're on a ship out at sea.  Nowhere is that more apparent than in their 13 minute opus, Hearts Alive.  I feel like I'm aboard a ship that is beginning to ride out into a hurricane, makes it to the eye, rides through to the other side, and finally out to peaceful waters.  

Listening to that behind my wall of speakers at very high volume, it did a great job of using the different channels to induce some symptoms of seasickness.  These guys wanted you to feel like shit to convey the ideas they were pouring into this album.  The subtly tuned bass produces some very discordant noises which are designed to make you feel uneasy.  This album is not just music, it's a fucking journey.

You can experience, through this album, the feelings of 19th century whalers - their fear, awe of the vast oceans, the raw brutality of hunting the world's largest living creatures for slaughter.  Few albums convey this kind of intensity.  This album will probably be a hallmark of both Sludge and Progressive metal for decades, and rightly so.  With it's very technical guitar work and very rhythmic bass lines, fans of both of these genres will be pleased.  The vocals only further seal the intensity of the emotions, making you feel as if you are coming down with sea madness.

And then they fucking turn the ship around.  With the closing track, Joseph Merrick, they play you the tale of a 19th century tragedy - the elephant man.  If I were a prissy bitch, I'd call it an emotional roller-coaster, but I'm not a prissy bitch.  Instead, I'll tell you that this song is a fucking train-wreck of emotions.  This train was hauling thousands of gallons of pity and sorrow, and now that it's crashed, it filled the sea with despair.  You can almost hear the people calling you a freak.  All of this, and there is not a single lyric in this three-and-a-half minute song.

I really can't say that there's any reason why any fan of Sludge or Progressive shouldn't have a copy of this album.  The fusion of these two genres is like a good marriage - they don't happen often, but you're happy when you see one that does.  If you don't have a copy, go out now and get one.

My Rating: 5/5

Mastodon Website
http://www.mastodonrocks.com/

Leviathan, Full Album on Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sulY3bixDxI






Review by Ishamael