By BRIAN GIFFIN
WRAPPED in the emotions of loss, sorrow, frustration and regret, Marrow Deep is the essence of the new Mastodon, served up on a bed of wild beats and seventies-style proggy keys topped with riffs that will make your brain explode.
The seeds of Marrow Deep were planted long before the events that inspired its concept, but the roots were laid in devastation and sorrow. Art born of tragedy can often be its creator’s best work and while it would be both audacious and wrong to suggest this is Mastodon’s greatest album, it definitely stands up with anything they’ve done.
As the first album without Brent Hinds – and a tribute to him – and the first as an official five piece unit, Marrow Deep is both transitional and retrospective, covering the length and breadth of their creative depth and introducing broader elements.
Opener “Barbarian’s Blood” courses with the sludge of their early days, driven with an incredible punk groove by Ben Koller from Converge, the first of the album’s guest spots. “Poisonous Weapons” marks a solid contrast, with dark and shade and seventies prog psychedelia woven into the fabric. The first taste of Bill Kelliher’s wild genius comes towards the end of their tribute to Hinds, “Your Ghost Again”, with a last minute riff that elevates the entire song into the stratosphere.
Marrow Deep establishes its own identity with the five-song suite beginning with “Out Like a Lamb,” Brann Dailor’s eulogy for his mother. Expansive and expressive, this series of tracks move into spacier, sadder territory with newcomers Nick Johnson and João Nogueira adding further depth and nuance. Johnson steps up with a solo into “They’re Coming For You” and Nogueira’s contributions allow Mastodon’s seventies prog aspirations to really flower.
“Moth and Bone” wraps this part of the journey with soulful reflection and spaciness, opening the way for the album’s monster triple play. With Randy Blythe and Converge’s Nate Newton lending a hand, “A Vampire’s Demeanour” rips atoms apart in a throwback to the sludgy hardcore of Leviathan. The cosmic trippiness of “The Vanishing” then enters with no less a human than Geezer Butler laying down the bass as Mastodon invoke “Planet Caravan” ahead of a spectacular build then a roar from Joe Duplantier and a colossal solo from Johnson. It’s Mastodon at their best, surpassed perhaps only by “The Three Fates”, a stomping rocker that throws in a spoken word part from Clutch’s Neil Fallon among more of Kelliher’s brain-numbing riffing and an equally outstanding solo to end things by Johnson.
It’s an empathic close to the band’s new chapter. If there’s anything missing from Marrow Deep, it is Hinds’ vocals, but both his loss and wild spirit infiltrates every aspect as if he had a direct hand in it from beyond the grave. Marrow Deep is everything Mastodon has brought to the table in the past and a grand preview of how much left they still have to offer.
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