Album Rating: 4.0

"Staff/emeritus or trusted-source reviews can get more weight"



In my mind, they don't. They're just a way for sites to come up with an average based mainly on reviews written by "professionals," since their opinions supposedly carry more weight. To me, the average user who throws up the horns and says, "This album rocks!" is just as important—if not more so—than someone writing a professionally written "thesis" on it.



I get what you're trying to say, though...

Sludgy, Proggy, intense and one hell of a ride. I'm not surprised that Mastodon is becoming more popular; their discography is too damn awesome to not be recognized.

Album Rating: 3.5

Pretty cool album, I dig the direction they're going for. Prob the most I've enjoyed Mastodon since CTS from the albums I've heard

Album Rating: 4.0

"Sludgy, Proggy, intense and one hell of a ride. I'm not surprised that Mastodon is becoming more popular; their discography is too damn awesome to not be recognized"



Plus, they have one hell of a collection of album artwork. I've bought all their albums on vinyl just so I can appreciate the artwork in a larger format.

Album Rating: 4.0

except this of course, but I will order it in due time

Album Rating: 4.5

man i'm past the "this record is missing brent" phase and straight into this is one of the best of their entire career, quite easily actually

Album Rating: 4.5

As bad as it might sound and with all due respect to the man, they proved that they can write a phenomenal record without Brent.



Your Ghost Again and Snakes For Dinner are beautiful tributes. "All that I could find amongst the grime were memories." That line hits me so hard.

Album Rating: 4.5

I would also say this is one of their best albums - could even be a 5 for me in time.

“sadly, it doesn't, we will never witness quircky Mastodon again...”

I don’t know what this is supposed to mean really, but for me Mastodon were always at their best when they were very serious about what they were doing (e.g. CtS) and at their weakest when they being a tongue in cheek rock band during their middle period, when it felt like they didn’t really know where to go as a band and you had Brent clearly bored, talking about how metal was ‘shit’ etc.

This and EoS duking it out for 3rd for me.

Not sure if anything here tops Roots Remain though. Ancient Kingdom…but I’m only two and a half listens in.

Album Rating: 4.0

"I don’t know what this is supposed to mean really, but for me Mastodon were always at their best when they were very serious about what they were doing (e.g. CtS) and at their weakest when they being a tongue in cheek rock band during their middle period, when it felt like they didn’t really know where to go as a band and you had Brent clearly bored, talking about how metal was ‘shit’ etc"





What I mean is that Brent's studio presence guaranteed those moments of pure "WTF just happened here?", whereas without him, Mastodon seem to indulge in a kind of progressive metal that can sometimes feel a little predictable. It has nothing to do with the band being (deliberately) at a time tongue-in-cheek.



(I still haven't heard a single song from H&G, so I don't know yet if that opinion of mine holds true for that album as well.)

Album Rating: 2.5

No, this unfortunately isn't it

enjoyed this a lot on first listen, as expected. unsure id subscribe to it being one of their best or best since CTS or anything like that, but need way more time with it digest my feelings. the features are all a great touch

Album Rating: 3.5

"I still haven't heard a single song from H&G, so I don't know yet if that opinion of mine holds true for that album as well."

Every album has been "safer" than the last (or, in review-speak, "more focused") so it still tracks.

Album Rating: 4.0

"enjoyed this a lot on first listen, as expected. unsure id subscribe to it being one of their best or best since CTS or anything like that, but need way more time with it digest my feelings. the features are all a great touch"





This is the problem I also run into when I look at Mastodon's place in music history. I get overly excited whenever a new album drops, and those first few spins are usually great, but there are very few albums in their catalog that I know I'll definitely keep coming back to.

A lot of people seem confused about what Brent actually wrote for Mastodon. A lot of their most straight up prog stuff was written by him; he was the main writer for CtS and also wrote and composed tracks like Hearts Alive completely on his own (you can find an old Brann interview where he states that Brent brought that track to them fully formed). That material for me is Mastodon at their peak and it also flows very well. Also interesting to note that although Brent wrote the majority of the music for CtS, the arrangements were done collectively. After that, the tracks he wrote he’d also arrange - Bill wouldn’t even be in the studio for those recordings (as per an older interview). He also wrote a good portion of The Hunter, which is their worst album in my opinion. I saw them live a number of times during the release of Leviathan and even back then, you could see that Bill was playing like he was in Neurosis and Brent thought he was in Led Zeppelin. That chemistry worked for a while until it didn’t.

Album Rating: 4.0

@Aluktodolo



Don't know if your latest comment was aimed at me, but regardless, we can't really say for certain what Brent actually wrote for Mastodon since we weren't in the studio with them or there when those ideas first started taking shape. Ideas can begin and develop collectively or individually. How a raw/basic riff eventually turns into a fully structured song, who came up with most of the initial ideas, or who contributed the most to the final arrangement is something only Mastodon themselves really know.



We can only speculate.



For my part, what I do know (and what my original point was mostly about) is that there are certain guitar licks, ideas, riffs, and solos that I know for a fact Brent wrote and developed, and I find them much more interesting than what the rest of the band has offered over the years.



Examples:



-> His banjo playing which influenced his picking hand (which in turn influenced his playing)

-> his lick banjo-inspired break in Megalodon

-> his many solos, and generally his idiosyncratic guitar style in tracks such as Jaguar God, Last Baron, Roots Remain,



I could go on. My point is that I feel he brought a unique flavor to the band that the other members didn't.



All of Mastodon's original members are talented though, don't get me wrong.

Album Rating: 3.5

Yeah this is pretty alright, but I don't think it touches the first four. I did attempt to listen to the last three albums and those were a struggle (and retroactively made The Hunter better in my eyes smh).

Album Rating: 4.0

I've always felt that The Hunter has more replay value than anything else they've released post CtS.