a Mastodon question - how would you define them

I have all the full length studio albums, from Remission up till Crack the Skye

they have been called everything within Metal (every suitable genre), from Death, Sludge, prog, stooner, alternative, psych, jazz, metal/hard/math core, doom, experimental, hard, and trash/groove metal, and everything in-between, they have even made a new term Whalecore, but to me they are unique yes they are metal but they don't sound like ANY other metal band, I have checked, (mostly because of which songs featured on albums, the way songs are constructed, how parts are effortlessly changing, how they can vary between ground shaking riffage and assaults (Trampled under Hoof, Mother Puncher and where Strides the Behemoth), and beautiful textural guitar layers and tapestry, like in Ghost of Karelia, Ol’Nessie, Megalodon and Sleeping Giant), and experimental tracks and also everything in-between)

 their use of not very distorted guitars) not even on their most brutal album Remission are the guitars overly distorted, the guitar sound is more Lynard Skynard, AC/DC sounding then actual death metal chugged riff.

They are something of a very heavy rock band or a hard metal band.

What would you call the genre which Mastodon are playing, name 3 things which make them stand out as a band.

they are undoubtingly my favourite 00s band

Edited by aginor - 05 August 2010 at 13:38

I realy like Trampled Under Hoof when the riff just destroys everything and sounds like a mountain is falling to pieces, (the riff in the main - verse), drungrungdrugdrungdrung, drungrungdrugdrungdrung, drungrungdrugdrungdrung, drungrungdrugdrungdrung, (well so it sounds in my head) 5 times is it repeated

I couldn't stop the moderator and admin that still dwells inside me from saying that this topic is in the wrong forum section.It should be in Prog bands,Artists & Genre Appreciation.