Seven years ago, I was beyond excited to hear Blood Mountain in its entirety. I had heard a couple of the tracks online (the catalyst that led me to stop that practice, as I wanted to hear albums from bands whole the first time around rather than having heard tracks beforehand) and was pleased with them. Little did I know how much of an impact this album was to have on me.
Now, I don't want to overstate its impact, by any means. It was not The Perfect Is the Enemy of the Good. It didn't change how I view the genre or songwriting, or anything like that. But it does present a compelling case as to why Mastodon's successive albums have been sub-par and it also rocks from front to back.
I'm not sure that any of these tracks aren't great. "Pendulous Skin" is the typical exploration of the band's obsession with the Elephant Man, and is thus more of a bonus than a part of the concept. And there's no doubt to me that this is a concept album, even if some of the tracks don't really jive with one another lyrically.
So if we're ignoring "Pendulous Skin", there are eleven tracks split into pairs of five by "Bladecatcher", the prog freakout. I don't think people were all that surprised about the content of "Bladecatcher". Mastodon had proven multiple times before how their musicianship was top-notch. In fact, I don't think the song goes far out enough. I didn't think so then, either. It might be the structure, which is pretty listener friendly and uncomplicated. Or it might be that the riffs just aren't that weird (especially coming after "Circle of Cysquatch").
The first half of the record seems more grounded than the second. Then again, the second half boasts songs like "Hand of Stone" and "Hunters of the Sky", which aren't all that groundbreaking or odd. The funny thing is that there's a consistency which starts with the opener and goes all the way to the closer, even with the off-putting nature of tracks like "Bladecatcher" and the radio-friendly "Colony of Birchmen". They really hit two extremes there.
Blood Mountain accomplishes the neat trick of expanding the band's array of sounds while fitting into their catalog as the logical follow-up to Leviathan. The most interesting part of the expanded palette is that all the songs generally fit together as a sequence and they don't sound all that different from each other, even when "Sleeping Giant" is slow and doomy and "Capillarian Crest" goes practically into space. These two tracks are right next to each other and really couldn't be more different in composition, but in execution they fit perfectly.
It doesn't hurt that most of these songs have excellent riffs that hold up seven years later. The vocals come along apace as well; no longer restricted to screams and shouts, Hinds and Sanders explore more melodic territory, but are careful to stay within certain boundaries. I enjoy the vocals on this record because none of the vocalists are trying to stretch into a range they shouldn't be in and the melodic lines are generally not too sugary.
Blood Mountain was the perfect confluence for Mastodon. All the pieces were in place for a great record. It just may be a classic as well.
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