The 9’s #5 Mastodon – Leviathan

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