Mastodon - The Hunter review

Year : 2011
Genre : Blues Rock / Sludge
Label : Reprise / Warner Bros
Origin : United States
Rating : 7.5 / 10

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Mastodon's freshest LP to date has its fair share of moments of rabid beauty, and also moments that reek the sweat of an obese, old circus wrestler who tries to entertain you with "special" moves that simply lack the kind of attraction/risk you would ever want to revisit upon successfully enduring watching those during one miserable sitting.

This band brings you an almost friendly, tender kind of quasi-sludge to encompass the record's omnipresent urge to reveal a natural slickness on bluesy registers, but the compositions show mixed results, as great moments are often interrupted by mildly efficient choruses that sound to fail to topple their preceding occurrences.

Some refrains, as you will see through examples to be given later, sound to come through as desperate attempts to release your attention momentarily from the torment that it gets the weeping slave of when the palette of elegant bluesy vibes have lost all their entertainment value for a second or two, but STILL they come to beat your awareness up in an attempt to force your last, remaining bit of appreciation for them from you. Oh, you would have been so happy and so willing to give it to them later. Sometimes you have to HATE when they want to take away from you what you want to give.

The chorus of the track called Curl of the Burl, - which is one of the most solid songs on the entire album, along with Stargasm, the Depeche Mode sludge titular track The Hunter and a tremendous end sequence composed of the last three pieces - sounds like this : "oh, oooh, oh, oooh!" And the chorus of the follow-up track, called Blasteroid, sounds like this : "ooooh, oh!, oh, oh, oh!" Help me or let me help you, Jesus. Read more to find out how this record rumbles through and stumbles in its own footprints.


Mastodon's The Hunter has solid, traditional sludge/blues rock charms whenever it chooses to be brisk and/or narrative, whereas the "rumble" it tries to produce as yet another primer agenda, simply does not feel to be served sufficiently, courtesy of inconsistent efforts exhibited on the compositional fields of the release. The least efficient segments of this spin reek of sweat of trying to summon a vibe similar to that contained in a vile and filthy fashion on the elegant effort Uncle Acid & The Deadbeat's Blood Lust, but Mastodon's rendition of this particular target-vibe is prone to be bogged down here and there with sequences that seem to have come out of nowhere and seem to serve no particular function. This is not too frequent, fortunately, but when it occurs, it occurs rampantly. The track called Octopus Has No Friends, for instance.

Notice the soul-swallower chorus. "I'm on my way back home!", then repeat. Man, I really really wish you'd reach home. The vibe of the chorus clearly is an aspiration to toll Foo Fighter's There Goes My Hero, only this time, the vibe is squashed by the mighty penis of a mastodon. What can you say beside : aua.

Another strange thing : opening track "Black Tongue". The lyrics go like this :

"I burned out my eyes
I cut off my tongue"

...

This is like : badass! (And, by the way, you are singing pretty well without a tongue, too.)

Fortunately, a good amount of tracks come to you with strong melodic structures to successfully reveal the main ambition of embedding legit blues rock into the mastodonic sludge, and this aspiration emerges solid through both brisk and midtempo segments of the album. Then again, other tracks border on the characteristics of Simon and Garfunkelish lullabies, now supported by incapacitated coffee grinder guitars that sound to prefer to call it a wrap and go home instead ASAP. This is the track called "The Creature Lives". Later on, the song reveals the nature of a Scottish folk song, and, when you realize that the main attraction of the declaration is to soak you into the sear enigma of directionless open power chords being ringed around for two minutes or so into wild space, you truly are left without a clue.

This strange development, fortunately, is assuaged greatly by a particularly strong ending portion, as the final three tracks give you superbly sculpted, eventful and especially melodic content that packs both the rabid sludge-animal and the promise of it being tamed at any moment. A mildly inconsistent spin that sounds to have spent a tad less time in the stove than it has signed on for, but its strongest moments guarantee an intimate, eventful and serious listening experience.

Rating : 7.5 / 10

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