![]() ![]() "Emperor of Sand" thematically begs for comic or film treatment with its expressionistic visuals, undead Sultans, howling sand sirens and perpetual torment within a sunbaked hellhole. It's also 10 out of 11 songs of transcendent enormity. This is the unit’s first concept album since 2009’s "Crack the Skye", partially conceived by the loss of guitarist Bill Kelliher's mother, and similarly taps the services of that album's producer, Brendan O'Brien. In this case, however, the devil gets no due, but perhaps wins the day overall through the rest of "Emperor of Sand"'s scorching sludge prog.Īs on "WICK" from local contemporaries ROYAL THUNDER, MASTODON utilizes grief as a creative harbinger for "Emperor of Sand". If, for no other reason, then to calm the presumed wracking of the brains that must be ever manifest in this group. When you play such fast, complicated measures album after album, night after night, then the devil's advocate must speak in defense of dropping a crude (crude by MASTODON's advanced, dizzying procedures) straight rocker. Or, perhaps, there's something unspoken amidst Georgia metal bands, who have collectively written the most spellbinding American metal in modern times, that speaks to dropping the simplistic now and then. They did more than that with the alarming single "Save Yourself", from the band's seventh album, "Emperor of Sand".Ĭall it the price of doing business with the upper echelon. Such is the same wall MASTODON inadvertently pivoted itself nose first against the minute they rhymed "curl" with "burl" inside a watered-down pop rocker. That was an album viewed by some as another notch in the heavy metal legend’s belt, and, by others, as a troubling point of no return. Then again, people cried foul at IRON MAIDEN for utilizing synthesizers and writing a rock-friendly tune on "Somewhere in Time". Oh, the dilemmas of high-profile tech wizards who, 30 years ago, would've faced less scrutiny than they do in the face of a sophisticated and far more opinionated metal community. ![]()
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