Mastodon
Emperor of Sand

For many, “Show Yourself” was the scandalous piece. Unfortunately, in the metal realm, it's often difficult to accept simple, direct, catchy things. Already back in the day, I knew how to appreciate the single as an even leaner version of the pop metal already excellently demonstrated by “The Motherload”, but now that the album is out, each individual song takes on more prominent features, and the picture becomes better characterized.

Emperor of Sand is an excellent album, let's not beat around the bush: Mastodon continue on their path of expanding their possible audience, yet they do not forego anything that made them great. Even more so than its predecessor, the new work is a dense patchwork of styles, able to accommodate almost opposing demands. It's catchy, flows with great agility without major obstacles, but the textures of the musical fabrics are as precious as before, or even more so.

We need to debunk certain myths: take Crack the Skye, beautiful, agreed, but listening to those tracks today, one realizes that Mastodon have progressively densified their music. What was once conveyed in 10-12 minutes is now unraveled in 6. The process is therefore highly ambitious: to compress all their musical arsenal into more agile structures and concise durations, adding a touch of mainstream metal catchiness that can only bother fundamentalists, those who pray to Chuck Shuldiner every day (far be it from me to criticize them for this, but a little open-mindedness!). “Precious Stones” and “Steambreather” are, in this sense, two bombs of impressive force and melody.

Mastodon demonstrate their extreme modernity and willingness to challenge themselves exactly when, instead of inflating their compositions hypertrophically, they aim at synthesis; instead of satisfying fans with demonic and intoxicated vocal parts, they push their vocal limits even further and have the already busy Brann Dailor sing in almost every track; they present an ironic image toward the metal imaginary, also through consistently parodic music videos. In short, as metal kings in 2009, they haven't settled on an easy throne. At first, they swerved, with The Hunter, an overly rushed album yet full of ideas that later bore fruit.

But what does this album have more than the previous one? Well, on one hand, it is even more synthetic, dry, crammed almost excessively, just to not waste a drop of talent. But not only that: with Emperor of Sand, the four from Atlanta reclaim certain forms tending towards progressive, but they don't go back to the pure virtuosity of episodes like “Capillarian Crest” or “The Last Baron”. If anything, the prog of some passages present here is even more mature because it doesn't need to show off to convince and captivate. The ever-excellent technique is subservient to even more digestible, yet equally fascinating forms. A purely functional prog, like that of Selling England by the Pound compared to Foxtrot, with the necessary proportions. Music that flows wonderfully, but the more you listen to it, the more you realize how rich, layered, complex, yet rendered accessible and perfectly blended it is.

In the extremely tight meshes of the compositions, some unexpected elements find space. Here too, going against the grain, space is found for slowness, delicacy, pathos: the effect is astonishing, amid the metallic clangors of “Roots Remain”, there's time for a slow, muffled section, with an absurd triangle solo. And it is a remarkable outcome: in the inexhaustible fury, slowness gains new effectiveness. The track even closes on dense piano notes. And off we go again at full throttle. “Word to the Wise” also nicely alternates powerful metal bursts with dissonant elements like a slow tambourine. "Ancient Kingdom" closes with bell tolls that free the soul.

One of the album's peaks is “Jaguar God”: from a suite, one expects and desires insane alchemies, which are present, but normalized, almost set aside. The main emphasis is given to some very simple yet highly effective drum counterpoints. This fact is revealing of the band’s general approach: there’s no joy in doing complicated things and shoving them in the listener's face; much harder is to hide complexity, leave it as a reward to the more discerning listeners, and put simplicity in the forefront, which is no less noble when so well conceived.

Otherwise, there’s almost no need to repeat the usual litany: crazy riffs, even more beautiful riff overlays (“Ancient Kingdom”), epicness, well-crafted choruses, thick and meticulously mended sounds as always. What surprises, however, is the ability to find space for many of Brent Hinds’ solos, who evidently wanted to let notes rain down. Here, even in this Emperor of Sand, it represents an improvement over Once More: in its conciseness, it manages to put in the exact opposite, the guitar solos. Not that they were lacking before, but here they are truly dazzling, spatial, ecstatic. Despite these trips by Hinds, everything else contributes to the goal of not breaking the album's rhythmic trance, which truly proceeds like a shard. A shard constantly embroidered by the genius of Brent Hinds. Speed and noble refinements: a dream. Even the lean “Show Yourself” has its fine solo, brief but fundamental together with the guitar blend to ennoble the track. There too, mistaking it for a Foo Fighters piece means having an inattentive ear.

The barrages of “Scorpion Breath” are a quake that should move even the most nostalgic. Scott Kelly does not disappoint, although it's difficult to surpass things like “Crystal Skull” or “Crack the Skye”. Here’s hoping this album makes those who confine Mastodon’s greatness to the albums from 2004 to 2009 reconsider. Sure, there needs to be a minimum of openness towards heretical concepts like (apparent) simplicity, synthesis capability, clean vocals, ecstatic breakpoints (also magnificent in "Clandestiny”). For a band that has done things like “Aqua Dementia”, facing these ghosts (for a certain vision of metal) means daring, it means not sitting back.