ONCE MORE 'ROUND THE SUN

After the utterly dissapointing The Hunter, Once More 'round the Sun was a total back to form. And maybe for the first time on their career the band stopped pushing forward and took a look back, being the style of the album a combination of all the types of music they have done through the years.

We have some stoner influence ("Tread Lightly"), melodic and catchy songs ("The Motherload"), sludge anthems ("Diamond in the Witch House"), psychedelic stuff ("One More 'round the Sun")... and all of it is great. I specially love three songs of the record, which are within my favourite Mastodon tracks of all time. The first one is "Tread Lightly", the song that made me fall in love with the band back in the day. A stoner metal anthem that drowns you in its splendid guitar work. And the one thing that came to my mind the first time I listened to it was "oh my God, this guy can sing". As you already know if you have read my other reviews I really don't like the style of Troy on Remission, and although on the later albums it gets better it doesn't do much for me anyway. But it was on this LP when he released his full potential, and it crushes all his perfomances.

The other two songs on my top list from this album are "Halloween", an amazing melodic metal song, and "Diamond in the Witch House". The thing I really love about "Halloween" is the second half, when they go nuts with all that heavy riffs and solos. I think that the halts they do on the ending part are really cool to. And "Diamond in the Witch House" is simply speaking, the best sludge metal song they have put out. It features Scott Kelly from Neurosis and you can tell that his band has been a major influence on this song, because if you listen to the parts that he's singing is difficult to tell the difference between the two bands. The final part, with Kelly screaming his lungs out and that heavy as hell but trippy riff playing is an incredible moment.

The rest of the songs are good too, and I don't dislike any of them. "The Motherload" is a more commercial song, in the vein of The Hunter, but much more well written and with actually a very catchy riff and chorus. "High Road" has one of the best riffs on the album but the chorus doesn't do it for me that much, while "Chimes of Midnight" is another strong song with an incredible riff but much better in my opinion. "Once More 'round the Sun" and "Asleep in the Deep" are the more psychedelic part of the album and I frigging love em, specially the first.

The worst songs of the album must be "Feast Your Eyes", "Aunt Lisa" and "Ember City", and even so they have very memorable moments and are good songs even if they don't match the quality of the rest. I find very enjoying the final part of "Aunt Lisa", with that nice choruses sung by The Coathangers, and the riff that plays at 2:58 in "Ember City".

In conclusion, Once More 'round the Sun is not on par with the two masterpieces that Mastodon has already put out by this time (Blood Mountain and Crack the Skye), but it's not that far. It would definitely be a top 3 contender for me, a must listen for every fan of the band and a recommend one for all the others.