Mastodon - Mixing up the genres in Belgium!

June 28th 2014

Dessel, Graspop Festival, Belgium

****

Progressive Metal, Stoner, Grunge, Grindcore!!! Mastodon have it all!!!

Graspop Metal Meeting

Mastodon **** (Main Stage 1) are one of the names in Metal that get mentioned all the time, but I never really got to listen to them properly. They hail from Atlanta Georgia in the USA and mix up Progressive Metal with Sludge, Stoner and Grunge with a touch of the own flair. They start the set with the 2011 track 'Black Tongue' off the album 'The Hunter' and you can instantly tell that Mastodon are an acquired taste. Your going to either hate this track or love it, it verges on a lot of styles of Progressive Metal that has been around in the last few years but you can hear a lot of original Heavy Metal influences in the mix too. They mix thing up with the Stoner Groove esq. 'Divinations' which also again has the Progressive elements that verge into experimental but mixed up with traditional Metal vocals. For me this is a more accesable track that I got into a lot more.

'Bladecatcher' is a very different kind of track that starts off normal and the goes into craziness and I would think is only for people that really know the bands material. I quite like 'Crystal Skull' the next track to played from the same album, It though did confuse me a bit because I think it even verges on Death Metal on some points. The album 'Leviathan' was a very interesting album for the band and in many ways saw a new direction and new sound. It's a so different piece of work than what we best know them for now. They pay the ever strange 'Megalodon' off this album, a song that I personally would have picked for this live surroundings and strangely it seems to go down really well and does not seem as out of place as I first thought it would when it started.

I think this is because as if flows on it goes more into what they do know and sounds more and more like a classic track which in a way it is now. 'Motherload' off the new album 'Once more round the Sun' is almost an instant classic and one that is really accessible to the mainstream audiences they are now playing to. The song really goes down well in these Belgium surrounding and makes you like the band a little more, in my opinion this is one of the bands better songs.

I love the fact the band have a song called 'Blasteroid', the name gives you a feel of arcade games from the 80's and is one of the best titles I have heard in a long time. This song does have a kind of space age feel to it and while they play it you can imagine lazer cannon's and guns firing in a futuristic setting. I think this is my favourite song the band play in their set today. 'Chimes at Midnight' is a slow sludgy groover of a track that starts off atmospheric and then goes into a style that could be similar to what Electric Wizard have been producing mixed with Progressive Metal. This is a really interesting track indeed and they play it very well in the hot sun.

'High Road' is one of the first new tracks off 'Once more around the Sun' to be heard and I think one of the best on it. I love the cover of this album, I think the colours really launch out at you and this comes across on stage to from the massive backdrop they have behind them and the colours that main singer guitarist Brent Hinds is sporting today (Which you can see in the picture above) . They end the set with two different but popular songs 'Bedazzled Fingernails' and 'Aqua Dementia' which finish things off in the right way and really show what the band are made off. Mastodon might not be all the time for me, but I can respect that they do something really interesting and think they are worth checking out. I still can't work out if I really enjoyed their set or not, but I do really respect what they are doing, it is different and their is nothing wrong with being different.

Mastodon - Setlist
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Black Tongue
Divinations
Bladecatcher
Crystal Skull
Megalodon
The Motherload
Blasteroid
Chimes at Midnight
High Road
Bedazzled Fingernails
Aqua Dementia

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