| How refreshing, then, to find nothing in the press materials telling me that I must either hail the return of The Rock Album or risk looking like I’m out of the loop! How nice, to have a record that gives its listener a little credit! It gets better with every listen. Some of you write me from time to time wondering which of the metal records that I write about you should buy if you’re just dipping your toes into the Resonating Lake of Magma That Ozzy Breathed Into Existence Near Some Midlands Factory Which Now Rocketh and Restoreth The Entire World. “Would I like Immortal?” people will ask, and while I can’t imagine why not, I always pause a moment before saying as much. Mastodon, though -- if you have any love in you for the kind of rock that makes you feel like you’ve been eating punches to the face all day, then I can’t imagine how you wouldn’t love this. It sustains a single prolonged attack through eleven songs plus a bonus track and doesn’t even get all Aren’t-We-Clever-Boys about it. Whoa. Awesome. |
