ONCE MORE 'ROUND THE SUN

Because Once More 'Round the Sun is a pretty generic Mastodon album. It mixes the fierceness and merciless riffs from Leviathan with the more progressive and melodic compositions from Crack the Skye, forgetting the weird and failed experimentations of the strange Blood Mountain and the too commercial and felicitous The Hunter.

The result is a very stimulating album which maybe does not hit the high levels of the two aforementioned albums (Leviathan and Crack the Skye) but reaches a very worthy third place in the podium of this band's career. Its progressive-sludge metal in its purest form, where Mastodon are the one and only specialists.

Best Tracks: the first five tracks of the album are just amazing! After that the album becomes a bit more irregular with some lackluster tracks like Feast Your Eyes and the not so impressive Ember City and Halloween. Diamond in the Witch house is an authentic return to the sludge metal roots of Mastodon, nevertheless!

Conclusion: Once More 'Round the Sun supposed a very welcomed return from Mastodon to the right path after the disappointing and cheesy The Hunter. The classical ferocious riffs of the band are back, the vocals are better than ever and the mixture between sludge metal and prog is just great this time.

So I consider Once More 'Round the Sun an excellent album from Mastodon. Maybe it was not as groundbreaking as Leviathan and not so perfectly composed like Crack the Skye, but a great addition to every prog metal collection anyway.

My rating: ****

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