Concert review: Mastodon at Metro
Remove the copious tattoos, and the four members of Mastodon don’t look much like rock stars. Guitarist Brent Hinds could pass for a burly, bushy-haired lumberjack; rhythm guitarist Bill Kelliher looks like he just got off work at an auto shop; and drummer Brann Dailor has the lean, clean-cut physique of a distance runner. Only bassist Troy Sanders plays the part with his Rasputin-like goatee.
But close your eyes, and this blue-collar Atlanta quartet might as well be caped wizards from the heyday of 1970s progressive-rock. The band brought its serpentine arrangements and cosmic imagery to Metro on Thursday, and performed with seriousness and intensity on a relatively bare-bones stage. Mastodon is the metal band of the hour, celebrated for the way it mixes heaviness and melody, artistic ambition tinged with mainstream appeal, and the club was packed with fans. Expect this band to be headlining a much bigger venue on its next trip through town.
Outside of a video screen which displayed images of astral travel and helmeted warriors, the band didn’t offer much to look at. Though metal’s visual flair can border on the theatrical, Mastodon performs with studious precision with heads lowered in concentration. Outside of the occasional heavy-metal pose --- courtesy of Sanders and his splayed-leg stances --- this band was all business. It played its latest album, “Crack the Skye,” in its entirety. Then it worked backward through its previous albums, offering selections from “Blood Mountain,” “Leviathan” and “Remission.”
The older material suggested how far the band has come. It was heavy on riffs, and the interplay between Hinds’ racing guitar and Dailor’s rampaging drums was breath-taking, particularly on the closing “Hearts Alive.” But the new material is a step above. Sanders, Hinds and Dailor shared vocals, and their call-and-response patterns and wordless harmonies were nearly as complex as the music. New songs such as “Oblivion” boasted choruses that echoed the anthemic drone of Alice in Chains, while more complex pieces such as the 12-minute “The Last Baron” and the four-part “The Czar” allowed the band to reveal a more spacious and trippy side to their music. Though still sprinkled with the heavy riffs and speed-racer tempos of the earlier material, “Crack the Skye” plays like a dream (or hallucination) with images of death, transcendence and time travel.
What’s lacking is a genuine sense of personality to match the out-sized ambition of the music. There are no alpha males in Mastodon, no sense of an on-stage leader, no visual focal point. Instead, the band focuses on purely musical expression. They are four art-heads as much as head-bangers. They’re not much to look at, but they’re brilliant all the same.
greg@gregkot.com