LEVIATHAN

The first major milestone for Mastodon comes with the band's second studio album, the mighty 'Leviathan', a concept piece that is loosely inspired by the classic novel 'Moby Dick' and offers a fresh expansion of the band's early sounds rooted in the tradition of sludge metal with many elements of prog metal, psychedelia, and even stoner metal. 'Leviathan' is a tight and focused album composed of several short tracks (all running within the 3-4 minute mark) and one epic piece that stretches on beyond the thirteenth minute - the entire concept album showcases a very drastic amelioration of the production values as well as the band's writing, and it remains quite impressive to hear how substantial and dense these mostly short songs are - Mastodon are at the top of their game on this album and the ominous feel of the deadly hunt of the white whale is incredibly well reproduced through the music.

Ripe with bruting riffs and armed with an epic grandeur, the album goes through a sequence of scenes that depict various parts of the story. The overload of heaviness mixed with the complexity of the music provides for a very intense listen as the entire albums exhibits this massive and compelling sound. This renders the entire album quite evocative, and we must also point towards the fabulous structure of the LP - everything is exquisitely well-done and each tracks sound amazing, independent of whether you hear it in the context of the album or outside of it. The improvement in the vocal departments is also substantial and we hear some great performances from both Brent Hind and Troy Sanders. The majestic opener 'Blood and Thunder' sets a triumphant tone for the album, which is packed with Mastodon classics - with the scorching riff on 'I Am Ahab', the blatant aggression of 'Island', the bombastic 'Megalodon' or the epic journey that is the 13-minute 'Hearts Alive', leading to the album closer, the gloomy instrumental 'Joseph Merrick'. Each song exhibits a unique "personality", and the entire 'Leviathan' album is a solemn, gorgeous and adventurous exercise in technicality, conceptuality and defying expectation, all aspects of the album that make it one of the most significant and compelling releases of the century, or in a word, a timeless work.