There’s no such thing as an album that’s a perfect 10 – but there those that are one notch below. The 9’s is an occasional series which explores some of those records.
Released: 2004
About
The list of artists who transform themselves between their first and second albums is long; often debuts are made up of years-old material which takes less effort to set into a final form. Mastodon’s first outing, 2002’s Remission was great, an antidote to the frankly awful slew of Nu-Metal dross that set the movement in general back years. The Atlantan’s follow up was however a revelation. A concept album based thematically on Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick, it melded their aggression and technical grit to a hugely ambitious soundscape, stretching it into the thirteen minute epic Hearts Alive.
Why a 9?
Compared to some of the other outfits inhabiting the tendrils of metal’s family tree Mastodon didn’t represent anything that extreme, but this world is by unofficial design hostile to outsiders – and the brutal power of these materially dense songs and allegorical themes of Leviathan made for a grand, exciting journey to the margins.
Why is it Important?
Put bluntly, rumours of metal’s demise at the century’s beginning were more than just that; whilst the likes of Slipknot and Korn thrived, the newly ordained music blogosphere ignored it and a febrile underground had to be content with being just that. Records such as Leviathan signposted a new direction, one where gravity and meaning could be wed to virtuosity. The future was in it, a serious but thrillingly intense place on the horizon whose promise and threat was equally intoxicating.
You Should Listen To
Blood And Thunder, Sea Beast, Megalodon, Iron Tusk, Hearts Alive
The Voice Of Unreason 