EMPEROR OF SAND

In the last years, Emperor of Sand has been my less listened album by Mastodon. I almost burned it when it first came out, and maybe that's the reason why I haven't touched it that much in these years. Now that I'm reviewing all of Mastodon's discography I've rediscovered this album and I'm enjoying it more than what I expected.

It probably is the more stoner record by the band. All the songs sound a little alike and they all have great vocal melodies. At first this homogeneity may sound like a bad thing, but in reality the album keeps ut with the expectations and delivers 11 songs with almost no flaws. Maybe the weaker songs are the melodic "Show Yourself" and the more sludgy "Andromeda", but even so they are good songs.

What I like the most are the Pink Floyd influenced moments. This influence is very clear in passages like the instrumental break of "Clandestiny", which with its psychedelic nature and heavy riffs makes for the best song of the album. "Jaguar God" is also an excellent song with some of this keyboard infused psychedelics that I love so much.

I also find the lyrics very interesting. They take a concept album approach again, about some Emperor that curses the protagonist to walk the desert until dehydration. What I love is that they use that story as a metaphore for a fight against cancer, which I find very clever.

In conclusion, meeting again with this album was a real pleasure. It maybe doesn't have any song that truly stands out above the rest, but nor under them. A truly solid release from an already consolidated band.