Mastodon
Remission

THE REVIEW

Every band, if only it decided with awareness and courage to go beyond certain rules and barriers, would have the opportunity to become a great band. Every band, if only they had the enlightenment to understand that a musician, while playing, can do anything, truly anything, would have the chance to produce beauty, grand beauty. Only then would it all be a matter of technical, compositional skills, and so on, but for me, the so-called talent is nothing but this: understanding that you are free to do whatever the heck you want when you play, and there are few bands that have this approach—free, joyful, and lively—with their music. If then a band has this "mindset" and moreover plays a genre of music followed by people who, no offense to metalheads, look at every novelty as a beehive in the toilet while you're taking a dump, it means they're a band with balls, heaps, and heaps of balls.

Mastodon plays metal, but metal purists (long-haired, beer and beer belly) often look at them askance, and at metal festivals, these great men with great bravery play around two in the afternoon, probably to bewilderment or worse, general indifference. Well, there is no justice in the world, that's known; even though Leviathan, the second album from the Americans in question, was quite successful (not as much as it deserved). The first album, instead, was naturally only noticed by me (their first release, on the other hand, a demo called "Lifesblood", if anyone has it or has listened to it, has all my respect and esteem), I was saying: this debut named "Remission" immediately highlights what the approach of these Mastodon is: overflowing technique, ruthless execution, and imagination beyond any limits.

All the songs, from the opener "Destroyer" (two minutes of fury), are a compact and powerful ensemble of rage, ferocious and nihilistic but with flashes of melody and pure beauty ("Ol'e Nessie," or the opening of "Trainwreck") that cannot leave indifferent a listener who loves all genres of music. We're not just talking about metal here, but Music, so it transitions effortlessly from two minutes of fury to eight minutes of pure beauty in "Elephant Man"; because Mastodon couldn't care less if the fifteen-year-old with the Amon Amarth t-shirt doesn't understand a thing about their songs, they couldn't care less if a blinkered world like that of metal will never fully appreciate them, they do whatever the heck they want. And they start with the same sincerity from furious rolls to arpeggios of disarming grace, because when you have this level of technique you can do anything. And then, behind the guitars, there's a man named Brann Dailor, what can I say? One of the best drummers currently on earth, and not one of those metal drummers with the double pedal going full throttle, no, one of those who know exactly what to put in every single second of a song, one with guts, who hits like a madman without even coming off as vulgar or too metal, on the contrary, showing that technique and violence can be synonymous (together with the bassist, he was in Today is the Day, a hardcore band with sensational nastiness, so dear Brann wasn't born a metalhead, this man can really play whatever the heck he wants).

In short, this band is fantastic and their debut simply overwhelms with its compactness, ferocity, and imagination. And soon the next one is coming with Cedric Bixler Zavala guesting on a track, just to once again blow the minds of all the little metalheads (those who say the album is bad if there isn’t a goat or an upside-down cross on the cover) these little metalheads will say that Scar Symmetry is better and then they will go buy the Iron Cobra because Joey Jordison has it. Once again, Mastodon will not care and will move forward. And that's called courage.