Mastodon, to those who are unaware of these US rock behemoths, fill a similar musical space to Iron Maiden or perhaps Rush, if they had louder guitars. Their music is wholly escapist, tending towards the bombastic with a widescreen prog metal sound. Moving from monumental riffing to quiet, more orchestrated ambiances and back again, their lyrics tell dramatic stories but don’t especially engage with modern life and its trials and tribulations. They may be able to turn up the volume but Ministry, with Raging Uncle Al Jourgensen’s continued hectoring of Amerikkka or Slipknot and their dark tales of social alienation, they most certainly are not.
Marrow Deep is the band’s first album in five years and their first since the departure and subsequent passing of original guitarist Brent Hinds, but it doesn’t change their established template a great deal. Both new guitarist, Nick Johnson and keys player, João Nogueira, who notably brings Deep Purple legend, Jon Lord-type vibes with his solo on the Hinds’ tribute, “Your Ghost Again”, fit in with the band’s existing sound and are unlikely to cause any significant consternation among long-term fans. This disc does bring in a host of guest collaborators though. Among them, Josh Homme adds his angsty vocals to the riff-tastic single “Snakes for Dinner”, while Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler and Gojira’s Joe Duplantier are on board for “The Vanishing” with its stoner, “Planet Caravan”-like atmosphere.
However, it’s on final eight-minute track, the gargantuan and more than slightly preposterous “The Three Fates” that Mastodon throw all caution to the wind on an already somewhat overwrought album. Bringing proggy keys, woven around a seriously ostentatious guitar solo and even jazz-rock flavours into the fierce tsunami of sound, the band totally let rip with the assistance of Clutch’s Neil Fallon. In fact, they wander perilously close to Spinal Tap territory throughout and only lack the voice of Vincent Price intoning the dramatic, spoken intermission that tells of “This curse that reveals itself over time” as a final flourish.
