Review by Geoff Jenke
After an initial run of classic Prog Metal albums, it seems Mastodon divided fans with their last two albums, The Hunter and Once More ‘Round the Sun. Not only were they not concept albums but they were also more mainstream than anything they released before.
Now Mastodon are back with a brand new concept album, Emperor of Sand. Drummer Brann Dailor describes the story as a man running from a death sentence handed to him. He gets lost in the desert and the sun is draining him of all his energy, a bit like radiation. He tries using telepathy to communicate with the natives to make it rain and kill the “radiation”. The album is torn between the sounds of classic dark Mastodon and the more anthemed rock of the last two albums.
Sultan’s Curse opens the album with blazing heavy guitar riffs and drumming but then the album goes into a very accessible sound with Show Yourself , which is also the first single lifted from the album. Maybe they were hoping for radio play.
Steambreather sounds glorious with all three vocalists contributing to the sound of loud fast swirling guitars and drumming. Roots Remain is all over the place musically but it actually works. We get some speed metal interspersed with proggy sounds, operatic vocals and everything in between.
Words to the Wise and Ancient Kingdom take us back to the Mastodon of old. Some great guitar interplay between Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher come to the fore. While there is nothing new here, the sound harks back to the Bloody Mountain era.
Andromeda features a guest vocal from Kevin Sharp from band Brutal Truth. Kevin has appeared on many of Mastodons albums in the past and takes the usual three part harmonies to a whole new level and I use the word harmonies lightly. The vocals are brutal.
Scorpion Breath continues to take us to the Mastodon of old this time with Neurosis’s Scott Kelly helping out on vocals. Andromeda and Scorpion Breath are the two heaviest songs on the album.
There is some relief with the final track Jaguar God. While it starts as an acoustic power ballad, it gradually burns to full blown metal and back to power ballad by the time its eight minutes are up, taking in a mind blowing guitar solo along the way. Definitely one of the albums highlights.
Emperor of Sand is the sound of Mastodon trying to regain past glories and on the last half of the album they achieve this.
This is their finest effort since the 2009 album Crack the Skye. It is heavy, multilayered, prog metal all rolled into one. If you are one of the fans that have given up on Mastodon, give them another chance.
Available now.
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