Latest news with #Neurosis
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'White whale! Holy Grail!': How the epic tale of Moby-Dick inspired Mastodon's greatest album
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. On March 7 it was announced that Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds has left the band my mutual consent. Mastodon formed in Atlanta, Georgia in 2000, and Hinds was there right from the start. The band's statement refers to '25 monumental years together'. And out of the eight albums they've made over the years, perhaps the most monumental of them all is the one released in 2004 - Leviathan. As UK journalist Paul Brannigan wrote: 'In truth, Mastodon have always been too quirky, too warped, too cerebral and too damn idiosyncratic to have genuinely stood a chance of cracking the mainstream. 'But the Atlanta quartet have created a remarkable body of work, forever pushing forward, constantly refining their craft. And it was their relentless, questing pursuit of excellence which inspired their finest artistic achievement. 'Leviathan, the band's second long-player, stands as both a conceptual piece themed around American writer Herman Melville's 1851 epic masterpiece Moby-Dick and an allegory for Mastodon's own career.' As Mastodon's vocalist/bassist Troy Sanders explained in 2005. 'The story of Moby-Dick paralleled the lives of the four dudes in Mastodon so much, [that] it was too easy for us to pick and pull similarities to Captain Ahab's character and the pursuit of the whale, and the dedication, persistence and sacrifice. 'The longevity of his trip was almost like what we've done in our band for the past five years.' In the same interview, Sanders nominated five musical artists who signposted the way for Mastodon's emergence: Thin Lizzy, Iron Maiden, Neurosis, The Melvins and These Jesus Lizard. According to Paul Brannigan: 'Elements of all five bands can be detected in Leviathan, but dissecting the beast is counter-productive, as this is an artefact that works best in its totality as an immersive experience. 'With Clutch frontman Neil Fallon supplying the voice of obsessive whale hunter Captain Ahab, opening track Blood And Thunder instantly sinks a harpoon into the listener, with a fabulously insistent riff and a chorus – 'White Whale! Holy Grail!' – that could hardly be more immediate.' Drummer Brann Dailor described Blood And Thunder as 'the ivory leg [Leviathan] stood on.' Another key track on the album, Aqua Dementia, features another cameo, from long-time collaborator Scott Kelly of Neurosis, while Megalodon is a spectacular showcase of all four band members instrumental virtuosity. But if any one single track on Leviathan marked out Mastodon as one of the most important metal bands of their generation, it's Hearts Alive, a majestic 13-minute prog-metal epic with echoes of Metallica's 1984 classic The Call Of Ktulu. Paul Brannigan described Hearts Alive as ' emphatic proof that Mastodon were more than just riff-monsters… a masterpiece of dynamics, structure and pacing, ebbing and surging like with its own riveting tale from topographic oceans.' In 2004, Leviathan was voted Album Of The Year in Kerrang!, Revolver and Terrorizer magazines. More than two decades on, it remains Mastodon's greatest achievement.
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Heilung might've played Glastonbury, but Birna shows Wardruna are still the grand daddies of Nordic folk
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Wardruna are less a band than a natural phenomenon. With their sixth studio album, the Norwegian collective continue their ambitious quest, crafting a grandiose form of world music that's earthy and primal while at the same time an essential part of the here and now. Birna, in very Wardruna fashion, focuses on the life cycle of the she-bear. It weaves together themes drawn from animism, pre-history and folklore with meditations on the natural world and the never-ending wheel of life, death and rebirth of which we are all a part, whether we dwell in teeming cities or shun human company completely. From slow, quiet thuds to scrabbling explorations and moments of thrilling abandon, the album follows the wandering path of its ursine muse, at times foraging, resting in a death-like sleep or painfully bearing young, at others rising up to rend and devour. The voices of founder Einar Selvik (craggy, ageless) and Lindy-Fay Hella (pure, eldritch) lead the fray, bedding in amidst strings, elegiac horns (literal ones, not the brass band kind), willow-bark flutes and stirring, deeply resonant percussion. The album opens with a muted heartbeat, the slow, rhythmic pound taken up by insistent drumbeats that soon become lost amid an orgic clamour of drones, voices and creaking strings. Dvaledraumar rests a hopeful, rough-hewn vocal line alongside portentous strings and a glowering atmosphere that's reminiscent of late-period Neurosis, while Ljos til Jord incorporates lilting flute and birdsong and Himinndotter pits rich, choral arrangements against voices that are rasped and ragged to the point of gurgling. Things are at their most dramatic with the breathy, pounding gallop of Skuggehesten and rousing closer Lyfjaberg, a piece that could variously be construed as either a funeral hymn or a life-affirming cry of triumph. As with immediate predecessor Kvitravn, Birna is expansive in sound as well as approach. Yes, the album is steeped in history, and conjures natural sensations that range from the feel of rough tree bark and freshly upturned soil to the smell of crushed pine and fresh animal shit. But for all the stretched hides and whittled bones that are pounded, rattled, plucked and blown, the album also has a foot very much in the present thanks to the low-key ambient crackles, field recordings and undeniably catchy melodies on display. This mix feels very on-brand for mastermind Einar, who's equally at home scoring TV shows and videogames, lecturing on Norse tradition and quite possibly flaying an elk in the bitter wilderness to get the parts he needs for a new duffel coat. As fascinatingly learned as it all is, Birna, like all Wardruna releases, is ultimately something better felt than understood. It prickles the skin, energises the soul and seems powerful enough to conjure a sense of near-cosmic communion whether you're surrounded by thousands in an amphitheatre or on your own, in your bedroom, with the curtains mardily closed. More than 20 years after their inception, the band remain a genuine force of - and for - nature, and Birna is a perfect, powerful statement whether you want to hibernate and hide from the terrors of the world or wake hungrily to face it anew. Birna is out now via Music For Nations / Sony. Wardruna's UK tour starts in Liverpool on March 17, for the full list of dates visit their official website.
