October 29, 2021

Reprise

2xLP (Standard Black Vinyl, Clear Vinyl)

Even though they don't consider themselves a metal band, it's hard to call Mastodon anything else. True, they're more than just an outfit that plays massive, swelling songs. They're among the smartest bands working today, regardless genre (a praise they've they secured with their high-concept 2004 magnum opus Leviathan, a prog-metal account of Herman Melville's Moby Dick). Fittingly, Hushed And Grim is more than just a metal album, despite sounding a heck of a lot like a metal album. Generally speaking, solemn rumination on mortality, friendship and death rarely come in a package this huge. Yet here, it is, a defiant bucking of expectations suitable for a band that has made a career of doing so.