REMISSION

Remission is the first full-lenght the band released after two EPs (being Lifesblood actually rather good, and Slick leg a bit meh on my eyes) and a series of demos. And we all know how this is, a brand new band finding his own space within the enormous metal market seems like a very daunting objective nowadays, but Mastodon were not like all the other bands. They took the world by storm, and in a genere that back in the day had no repercussion at all made a complete hit, praised by public and press alike. And with good reason, because Remission is as good as an sludge metal debut can get.

The album is a compendium of heavy as hell riffs one after the other. Furthermore, the band took you by surprise in the first half of the LP, which includes almost all the speed and heavy songs. "Crusher Destroyer" is a bit simple, but the crushing syncopated riff and the superb drum patterns by Brann Dailor (something that is a common thing for all the album) make it worth. "March of the Fire Ants" for its part has one of the best riffs the band has ever offered, and starts introducing a little bit of the prog elements the band it's kwown for. "Where Stride the behemoth" and "Workhorse" use the same formula as the songs before and are really good on its own (I specially enjoy the second), but we're almost 15 minutes in and there has only been one type of song. Luckily, Mastodon then drops "Ol'e Nessie", the first trully progressive song of the record, with psychodelic guitars on the beggining and an almost doom aura to it which I truly love.

And for that reason I believe that the second half of Remission is what takes the cake. The songs on the first half are really good (specially "March of the Fire Ants") and will appeal to the more metal-oriented fanbase of the band, but it's on the second half where the more progressive stuff and interesting songwriting is concentrated. "Trainwreck" is my fav song and reminds me of things that they would do on later albums such as Blood Mountain or Crack the Skye. My other favourites are the proggy "Trilobite" and the beautiful instrumental "Elephant Man". "Mother Puncher" is also a very good song with a killer riff that has become a live staple for the band.

For me the biggest downsize of the album would probably be the vocals. I find them rather boring, with no variety at all. Here Troy takes care of almost all of them, with the exception of Hinds on "Workhorse" and other exceptional moments, and they are simply speaking not that good. And don't misunderstand me, I love Troy as a vocalist, but I also think that his abilities were not developed at all at this time, and the changes between vocalists of the later albums are one of the things that made Mastodon so diverse and fun to listen.

In conclusion, Remission is a very good album and a strong debut, but it falls more on the metal side than in the prog one. For me that's not a problem because I started listening to metal and then I discovered prog, but if you are more a proggy guy than a metal one i recommend you to start listening to the band on another album, such as Crack the Skye or Blood Mountain. As long as my personal tastes are concerned, this LP deserves four stars, something between an 7.5-8.0. But because we are on a prog site and not in a metal one I will rate Remission with three stars, as it is a excellent addition to any metal collection, but a non essential for a prog one.

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