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Metal
Published:
2021
Record label:
Warner Music
«The most complete Mastodon album to date»
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ALBUM: Four years is, in a sense, a long break between two albums in the Atlanta quartet Mastodon’s enigmatic fable universe. “Hushed & Grim”, album number eight or nine – depending on how you calculate – follows up the brilliant “Emperor of Sand” from 2017.
Long conception and a consistently well-turned catalog help to raise the expectations of “Hushed & Grim” to a dangerously high level. But if there is one band that can withstand that kind of “pressure”, it is the four-band, Mastodon.
It will not take more than a few more seconds of the initial drum fillet of Brann Dailor in the opening track «Pain With An Anchor» before one realizes that this is going to be a sensuous journey. Dailor says it really best himself: «Oh my dear, look what we’ve done here».
To put it nicely – the rest of the 86 minute long album keeps what the opening seconds promise.
Elegant and intuitive
“Hushed & Grim” is, if possible, the most complete Mastodon album to date: reclining in appearance, packed to the brim with gorgeous details, whimsical melody lines, clever arrangements and a wealth of surprising and catchy musical twists.
It is melodic, progressive, drone, soft and hard on each other. Yes, even a little jazz where needed. But the best thing about all this is that all the different components flow seamlessly and elegantly into each other, as if the songs are written and performed completely intuitively.
To begin with the end. When the last arc nod carries with it the concluding cello tone in the point of the plate, “Gigantium”, one is simply completely tender in body and soul. In the best possible way.
Perfection
This is a record that is never in a hurry. It’s about letting the songs live their own lives. Brann Dailor has cultivated his clean and sonorous vocals to perfection, and together with Troy Sanders’ hoarse rasp, they have developed a dynamic that carries the songs and the band forward in the best possible way.
If you connect two of modern hard rock’s sharpest riffmakers in Brent Hinds and Billkelliher, you have a deadly efficient machine that grinds out one monster song after another.
«Teardrinker», «The Crux», «The Beast», «Pushing the Tide» and the aforementioned “Pain With an Anchor” is one of the sharpest bands ever. It is really superfluous to mention single songs. Here, all the songs play a role in a larger whole.
Do you really need to say more? This can quickly be the roughest rock record of the year.
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