Atlanta’s MASTODON has become so megalithic in the underground metal scene it’s hard to believe the forthcoming Blood Mountain (Warner Brothers) is only their third full-length. Most prog-metal bands concentrate on the high-end in their ambitious epics; Mastodon’s might is in the foundation. No one but no one uses drums quite like they do, with pounding so solid the songs are more landmass than music. Their first two records, Remission and Leviathan, were so meticulously, deeply layered you expected to find fossils in the bedrock. Like Leviathan, Blood Mountain is a concept album: its conceit is the heroic struggle to scale a summit when the crevasses and valleys give way to an utterly believable nightmare landscape, populated by monsters both internal and external. –Monica Kendrick
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Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Ryan Russell.
