BLOOD MOUNTAIN

For me this is the first Mastodon masterpiece, being Crack the Skye the other one. Crack the Skye is often said to be a splendid LP by almost everyone, but Blood Mountain seems to have much less recognition, something that I think is unfair because the two albums are on the same level of quality and I even prefer this one over the later.

Firstly, this is ther first album which have the definitive Mastodon sound. You can say goodbye to the sludge riffs and say hello to the more psychodelic and intrincate playing the band is known for. The lyrics have improved a lot also, being Blood Mountain another concept album but much more elaborated than Leviathan, with an actual story that has its own mythology (all that cysquatch, birchmen... stuff is pretty cool) and a lot of metaphorical and atmospherical verses.

Regarding music, this is the top for Mastodon in my humble opinion. Here you have absolute bangers like "Capillarian Crest", with a guitar solo that is probably one of the more intrincate and progressive passages the band has ever done, pushing forward all that hillbilly influence from Brent, something that is completely unheard in metal music. Furthermore, there is a lot of Thin Lizzy influences here. The guitars are always dubbing each other making harmonies that remind me of the ones that the brits usually did. Even the voice of Troy is influenced by Lynnot, as you can clearly here on the verses of "This Mortal Soil".

Probably the think I love the most about this record is that is indeed a psychedelic metal album, and I'm a big fan of psychedelic music. In "Sleeping Giant" for example the intro is ridiculously good, and it sounds like a modern version of all that 60s and 70s classics such as Jefferson Airplane, Ten Years After or even Jimi Hendrix. "Pendolous Skin" is the other purely psychodelic song, but this elements are present troughout all of the album.

Other songs worth remarking are "Bladecatcher", an instrumental that reminds me of "Ants" from Devin Townsend for the histrionics that it gives off. "Colony of Birchmen" is another one of my favourites. I really like the vocals from Brent on here, and the chorus is as memorable as it can get. For the other hand, "The Wolf is Loose" and "Crystal Skull" are my two favourites from the heavier side of the album. They are worthy succesors of their sludgy roots, but at the same time you can feel the evolution, with a lot more of effort on the songwriting, the structures and the riffs, which are much more melodious and memorable.

Blood Mountain is possibly my fav Mastodon album, and I think is a must-own for every metal prog-head out there.