Atlanta’s sons Mastodon have traveled a long road since their inception in 2000 and a road hard and bumpy at that. One of the hardest emotional blows the band had to deal with was last year’s tragic death of original band member Brent Hinds and the fact he was already not part of the band by then, didn’t make the loss easier to digest. Marrow Deep, the band’s ninth full length, thus happens to be the first without Hinds and an obvious new chapter for Mastodon.
Five years have passed since the expansive double album Hushed And Grim and the present incarnation of Mastodon features guitarist Nick Johnston and keyboard player João Nogueira joining in for the recording of the new album alongside Troy Sanders, Brann Dailor and Bill Kelliher. The collection opens with one of the more straightforward and aggressive tracks in Barbarians Blood, ticking all the right boxes and reminding quickly just how good these guys are, with the additional percussion by Converge’s Ben Koller also a nice touch.
Poisonous Weapons and Your Ghost Again feature more melodic vocal parts by Dailor and fantastic instrumental sections, and are where Johnston first makes great impression with some tasteful solos. Sure, the last thirty seconds of Ghost can make your neck hurt badly, but the same can be said about the opening storm of riffs in Snakes For Dinner, which features a guest appearance from Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age (his last Mastodon cameo was 20 years ago, on Blood Mountain). The emotional lyrics in the chorus hit hard: When you left, you took the moon and stars. When you left, you took our hearts and minds. “It’s both my mom and Brent wrapped up in a little bundle of sadness,” Dailor says. “You’re left with memories, but you can’t talk with that person anymore. That deep feeling of loss you have when someone passes makes it seem like they took everything with them, for a little while at least. It’s kind of hard to feel whole again.”
The vocal interplay between Dailor and Sanders in Out Like A Lamb is phenomenal, some really clever keyboard and synth parts completing the song in a rewarding way. In The Ruins could be described as the album’s most mellow, melancholic song, which makes sense considering it was inspired by the devastating impact of Hurricane Helene and the personal havoc it wreaked upon Sanders and his family. They’re Coming For You follows with a calmer, more streamlined, melodic part, with some angry gang-shouted vocals in the latter half of the song, changing the mood in a way only these guys can. Golden Spires is classic Mastodon, with a bit more of a progressive touch in the structure, once again with amazing guitar solos wrapping it up near the end. Moth And Bone is probably the most uplifting song in mood, with some great keyboard parts once again deserving compliments directed to Nogueira.
A Vampire’s Demeanor, easily one of the albums’s strongest tracks (in an already impressive bunch of songs so far) smashes everything in its way with imaginative melodies, unexpected tempo changes and a thunderous wall-of-sound guitar riffs from Kelliher. The proggy solos towards the latter half merge into a final culmination with the genius chorus part, which comes with guest gang vocals from Randy Blythe (Lamb Of God) and Converge bassist Nate Newton.
For a Black Sabbath diehard like me, the opening bass solo from none other than Geezer Butler in The Vanishing was a hair-raising moment, the song itself paying a subtle homage to the sound and spacey atmosphere of Planet Caravan with another guest appearance from Joe Duplantier (Gojira). Beautiful!
The Three Fates is an absolutely epic closer, condensing so much music in its nearly eight minutes, that could almost make for a whole separate album of its own. The song is the center theme for the whole album, Dailor choosing the Three Fates of Greek mythology, the weaver goddess-sisters who were believed to determine our destiny. “We’re talking about two people who maybe tried to outsmart the Three Fates and hide from them – one unintentionally and one intentionally,” Dailor points out. “My mom was pretty sick for most of her life, but she kept dodging bullets left and right over and over again. And Brent cheated death more times than I can remember.” Neil Fallon (Clutch) appears with an eerie and hypnotic spoken-word part, before the second half of the song slowly builds up a psychedelic instrumental section and crazy lead guitars towards an orgasmic culmination of sound.
Marrow Deep is another piece of pure artistic perfection from a band which has nothing more to prove. They are rewarding us with another fruit of their talent and we can only be grateful.
10/10
Marrow Deep is out this Friday and can be ordered from HERE
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