Review Summary: The age of Mastodon is over.
Arguably the crème de la crème of modern mainstream metal bands, Mastodon’s knack for subtle evolution between albums has earned them the respect of music fans everywhere. Before this record the Georgia quartet had steadily morphed from a no-frills sludge metal attitude into a more challenging and progressive outlook before softening the edges of their music with psychedelic influences. Compare their debut Remission to 2009’s Crack the Skye and then again to 2014’s Once More Round the Sun and you will find a band who are masters at honing a sound both diverse and consistent in nature. Unfortunately with Emperor of Sand, the band appear to have finally run out of steam.
The record is a continuation of Once More Round the Sun’s focus on (relatively) simple song structures and catchy vocal hooks underpinning the majority of the choruses. This direction is typified by the record’s second single, ‘Show Yourself’; an insipid affair which does nothing to stretch itself outside of its mind-numbingly straight-picked power chords and awkward guitar solo. This isn’t to say that the whole album follows this trend, ‘Sultan’s Curse’ providing a solid intro with soaring guitar harmonies and ‘Jaguar God’ capping off the record in style with its dynamic structure and crushing riffs. Once again for Mastodon the record’s production is stellar (save for the awkwardly mixed handheld percussion), and the boosting of mids in the guitar tracks helps to give the record a ‘vintage’ quality.
The problem with Emperor of Sand lies in the fact that everything about it feels so forced. Lyrically the record centres around a desert wanderer with a ‘death sentence’, inspired by the members’ personal experiences with cancer, and thus are generally more personal in nature than in previous albums. Take the chorus of ‘Steambreather’ as an example: “I wonder who I am; Reflections offer nothing; I wonder where I stand; I’m afraid of myself. ” In truth Mastodon have never been particularly amazing lyricists, but this has always been an issue well-hidden by the complexity and sheer brutality of their music. However, when translated onto a record which relies on catchy vocal hooks as its main device, the whole affair comes across as slightly immature and lacking finesse.
A lot of the songs on Emperor of Sand also seem to float in one ear and out of the other in their sheer aimlessness. Sure, the key change in the chorus for ‘Word to the Wise’ is powerful, but the song doesn’t seem to have any real intention after this is repeated a couple of times with a few more key changes haphazardly thrown in. It exemplifies the album perfectly, as although the individual elements that make up the song sound interesting enough, the fusion of these elements comes across as awkward and, again, forced.
To put it simply, Mastodon have shown with this record that they have lost their sense of urgency. This itself isn’t a bad thing; on the contrary it’s to be expected from a band of maturing musicians. It’s just that Emperor of Sand doesn’t come anywhere near the level you’d expect from the kings of mainstream metal, instead finding comfort in the safety of its austerity and predictability. Although by no means an offensively bad record, it’s an extremely underwhelming representation of where Mastodon are as a band at the moment, and shows the first signs of decay beginning to creep their way into the fold.
