Whilst I haven't followed them that closely their whole career, and really only started listening to them in the last year or so, it seems obvious to me that Mastodon are one of those bands who do whatever they want, in terms of music. Whilst remaining 'heavy', no two albums of theirs really stay the same. And no more so than their latest album, The Hunter.
Whilst it's predecessor, Crack The Skye adopted a more progressive feel to it, with epic long songs such as The Czar and The Last Baron, The Hunter goes for shorter songs, a move that angered many people, who seem unable to enjoy watching a band as talented as Mastodon evolve.
To say The Hunter went down well critically is a bit of an understatement. Recieving glowing reviews across the board from places you'd expect it to, like Kerrang, Classic Rock and Metal Hammer to places you wouldn't, such as Q, The Guardian. Hell, The Times named it their album of the year for 2011!
The album even bothered the top 20 album charts in the UK, and they featured on an episode of Later With Jools Holland on the BBC. As you may gather, Mastodon are not just another metal band.
What I like so much about them is that they don't try and sound like a tribute to older bands. When you have seemingly every metal band out there emulating Metallica, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden etc., Mastodon, again, do what they want and have a style that's almost their own.
Opening for Mastodon at the UEA was Red Fang, a band about as close as you can get to Mastodon musically. And I mean that in a good way. From Portland, Oregon and on their first tour ever in the UK, the band really impressed. A stoner-style mix of big riffs and dazzling solos, won everyone at the sold out UEA over almost instantly. A great start to the night.
What didn't fit that well on the bill however, was the inclusion of The Dillinger Escape Plan. Whilst they were hugely popular with the crowd (many of whom were clearly only there to see them) and did at first hold my interest with their energetic and crazy performance, I just couldn't maintain the excitement levels others had for them. I've never been a huge fan of screaming vocals, but DEP play extremely well, but after a little while, the vocals, and the lack of memorable songs (they really did bleed into each other after a while) really started to turn me off. There are plenty of Mastodon's contemporaries that could have fit the bill, it's a shame that didn't happen.
All such issues with the support bill were soon forgotten when Mastodon hit the stage. What followed was over 90 minutes of pummeling metal, with no breaking for any between-song talking, a lot of which was from The Hunter (9 songs out of the 23 played in fact), and those seemed to be the songs that got the biggest response from the crowd, from where I was standing anyway. Songs like Dry Bone Valley, Black Tongue, Curl of the Burl, and Blasteroid got huge cheers, up there with the reaction when they played the older hits such as I Am Ahab, and Blood and Thunder.
As is becoming tradition at gigs, the people around me didn't seem to share everyone's enthusiasm. While Mastodon were on stage, some kids to the left in me (wearing DEP shirts) seemed more interested in throwing a shirt about the crowd, and a lot of the time weren't even facing the stage.
But the worst thing by far was the young guy in front of me who I saw UPDATE HIS FACEBOOK STATUS whilst Mastodon were on stage, moaning about how dull they were, and how he wanted them to play the older stuff. Even though the name of the tour was The Hunter. Just astoundingly ignorant, and possibly the worst thing I've ever seen at a gig.
Apart from the idiots who refuse to accept a band must release new material to continue to have a career, the crowd reaction to Mastodon was one of the loudest I've ever heard at the UEA (which was either sold out, or extremely close to) throughout the set. The performance reminded me in a way of when I saw Dream Theater at High Voltage last year, just amazing musical skills, but utterly grueling, in the best possible sense.
Where Mastodon go from here is anybody's guess. They seem to be able to do no wrong for the last few years (they even emerged unscathed from doing the score for the terrible Jonah Hex movie), so the only way is up. At this rate they could be the band that finally changes the public's perception of metal. It'd be about time.
Mastodon played...
- Dry Bone Valley
- Black Tongue
- Crystal Skull
- I Am Ahab
- Capillarian Crest
- Colony Of Birchmen
- Megalodon
- Thickening
- Blasteroid
- Sleeping Giant
- Ghost of Karelia
- All the Heavy Lifting
- Spectrelight
- Curl of the Burl
- Bedazzled Fingernails
- Circle of Cysquatch
- Aqua Dementia
- Crack The Skye
- Where Strides the Behemoth
- Iron Tusk
- March of the Fire Ants
- Blood and Thunder
- Creature Lives
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