LEVIATHAN

After the promising Remission. Mastodon turned the metal world upside down with their sophomore release, the modern classic Leviathan. This was the album that put them in the mouth of everyone, and even today I would say that is their most renowned record. But for me, the best was yet to come.

The first thing I wanna say is that I love this record to death. It was my first contact with the band and I still listen to it regularly. I even rated it 5 stars before writing this review, but after some calmer listening I have found some things that I don't really like that much after all these years, the first of them being the lyrics. Leviathan is often said to be an splendid conceptual album taking on the themes of the novel Moby Dick, but the truth is that the references are very vague and lazy. After "Island" they even stop talking about the story at all for a few songs. But indeed, these are the best of the bunch. The atmospheric lyrics of songs like "Naked Burn" or "Megalodon" are ones that I really enjoy, plagued with biblical references they are more focused on creating an atmosphere that fits the song well than they are on telling an actual story, and I think that's great. The songs which rely on the Moby Dick tale are the ones that I doesn't like at all. Take for example "Iron Tusk", where they spend an entire song explaining that Ahab is preparing his harpoon in the most descriptive and lame way imaginable, with none of the magic of the other songs I've commented present.

And what about the music? In this section I have less complaints. I really like almost all of the songs, and the musicianship is way better than in the previous Remission. Here Hinds and Kelliher began to take that approach to riffing with all the hillbilly influence, using the maximum amount of open strings to make them sound more wide and trippy. The drumwork of Daillor is incredible as always, with some frenetic fills which show that he is one of the best drummers of this century. And last, the vocal delivery by Troy Sanders is the more noticeable improvement in my eyes. Here he's far from his peak yet, but the improvement from Remission is huge.

And although I've said that for the voice of Troy, the songs that I enjoy the most from the album are the ones that have Hinds on lead vocals. "Seabeast" and specially "Naked Burn" are two incredible songs, that take the ferocity of the band music and start experimenting with more melodic vocal lines and muddy-enviromental guitars. If you want to take a look at what I'm saying check the chorus from "Naked Burn", probably one of the more memorable moments of the LP.

In the more sludgy department we have the classic "Blood and Thunder", that although a bit simple (and similar to "Subordinate to Domination" by Pestilence) is a real banger. I really like too the intrincate riffs of "Island", the country lick and riff from "Megalodon" and the increidible intro from "Aqua Dementia", which is one of the first demonstrations of the proggy riffs that the band will take from this moment on. "Iron Tusk" was one of the singles but I found it rather boring at times, and "I Am Ahab" is forgetable, being buried within the two colossus that are "Blood and Thunder" and "Seabeast".

The last two songs are a bit divisive on my eyes. I know that a lot of fans put "Hearts Alive" on their top 10 songs from the band, and it's their very first suite, but I don't love it that much. And yes, I like the song and it has some really nice parts (I love the verses indeed), but in my opinion is a tad long for what it have going on. Specially in the final sections I found it very repetitive, which also makes me take the instrumental "Joseph Merrick" with little enthusiasm, although being a nice little acoustic instrumental.

In conclusion, Leviathan is a clear improvement over their debut, but they were yet very far from their peak. It's a bit more progressive than Remission and much less brutal, which I believe is something than the prog community will apreciatte, but the best songwriting they have to offer arrived in the next albums. Even though, Leviathan have a lot of enjoyable moments and some of the finest songs from the band career, so I believe that in the end 4 stars is the perfect rating for it.