EL DOOM & THE BORN ELECTRIC

El Doom and the Born Electric gave me the initial impression of, "this is what I wish Mastodon sounded like." In other words, all the good parts of Mastodon without the potentially annoying. In reality, as you get deeper into this album, it's much more. There's a range of sounds here (I'll avoid the word influences since I don't know if these bands influenced them) , Mastodon already being mentioned, and the album has a sort of transgenerational feel. As already pointed out, there's the modern influences, the kind of sludgy postrock-ish modern prog bits, but there's also a good dose of 70's heavy prog, gothic rock, and lots of classic hard rock too, calling to mind Rainbow era Ronnie James Dio. The composition is smart, whether they're using bluesy riffs or odd time signatures with dissonant chords, it also seems to work out very naturally. El Doom & the Electric proves to be a quality album with a little bit for both the modern and the old school heavy rock fan. Don't be expecting symphonic prog here, just good heavy guitar driven progressive rock.