Struck by Lightning – Serpents
Posted on November 27, 2009 at 12:00 am by admin
The career path of Mastodon makes them a strange band to take influence from in some ways. They started off as an “art” band with some really crazy material in the early albums (sludgy, odd time signatures, oddball harmonies) but turned into a progressive band over time, and now they’ve got a significant degree of popularity. Sometimes though I think bands taking heavy influence from the bands they like tend to miss the point somewhat.
Though “Serpents” doesn’t contain that much low-end or sludge (well, it is metal and it is heavy of course), they’ve mixed early and mid-period Mastodon together. What you’ve got a near sludge roaming low riffs, the drum rolls, the repetitive guitar lines on top, and mutating melodies with barely a progressive slant, all topped off with a harsh, mid-ranged bark with some harsh vocal harmonies.
In the end though, “Serpents” is a Mastodon clone that has a bit of atmosphere, but none of the huge hooks or youthful passion that Mastodon had when putting out their earlier albums. Granted, there’s barely been any Mastodon clones of late, so “Serpents” is still in a pretty small field, and the execution is done well enough for those who can’t quite get enough of the older Mastodon albums.
Released September 1st, 2009
Struck by Lighting at MySpace
Translation Loss Records at MySpace
Buy this album at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
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