Yes, I've had a bit of an unplanned hiatus from Trickgnosis. Celebrated a birthday (I'm officially middle-aged now I'm told), enjoyed some good company and did some ruminatin.
More on that, and some pics of recent adventures, to come.
For now, I will tell you that my quest for a good new metal album is over. I don't listent to lots of metal but in the course of a year or so I like to find a couple new discs to satisfy my heavy needs. As of late I had struck out twice. The new Corrosion of Conformity was a collection of songs with no coherent identity--only one of which managed to excite. Oh well. So a while later I tried the new Soilent Green. I had high hopes. Which were dashed. It was...boring. Cookie Monster vocals, predictable changes, too fast to sustain any real momentum. Disappointing.
So after numerous recommendations from folks with good tastes, I decided to give the local boys a shot: I bought the last Mastodon record. Now, I had seen them live before they went and got famous, and I'd heard their e.p. and some of their first l.p. and thought they were fine but nothing special, but apparently all that touring did the trick. Leviathan fucking rocks. I found what I was looking for right in the neighborhood. Now I'm not ready to declare them super geniuses or the saviors of rock and roll or whatnot as they are not without some flaws. But they are talented folks who've put out a damn fine record that is not only not stupid, it's just smart enough. It's central literary conceit is handled deftly: well chosen and not overdone. A heavy metal Moby Dick has the potential for ridiculous Spinal Tap style satire, but the pairing succeeds here. It's so good in fact that I will no longer think of them solely as that band with the bass player who has that girlfriend I had a crush on for so long. My metal needs are satisfied for now.
By the way, if you ever want to waste some time and despair over Western culture, go to Amazon and read the reader reviews for Mastodon and some of the other new metal bands. Mastodon may be the future of heavy metal, as some critics have called them, but as near as I can tell that just means they can spell.
