I recently got around to picking up Mastodon - Leviathan. Its a bit harder than my usual listen, but I like a lot of prog metal except for maybe the fantasy metal vocals of the '80s that many of the prog metal acts didn't lose. I generally like a lot of the music from metal acts with talent but hate the vocals. Well Mastodon straddles the fence... Their vocals is on the cusp of what I can tolerate; not quite growling, but almost.
TVYankee's g/f and I had a discussion about metal music at the last rave. His g/f and I has some overlap in taste when it comes to metal. I like Sepultura from the music perspective but not necessarily the vocals, ditto Soulfly. Slipknot is a lot like that....they were actually one of the 'nu-metal' acts I could tolerate. At least their first release. Well Mastodon, to come back to the topic, is the metal version of mozart. These guys can rip like their is no tomorrow. The time changes are typical of prog metal but the melodic riffs not necessarily are.. The vocals, well they are semi-growling. Tolerable given the splendid delivery of musicality of metal melody. I can tolerate the vocals for the music they deliver which is more than I could say about Trivium, which I recently checked out. Music was good but vocals intolerable.
Josh
(trying to expand the horizons of many audiophiles)
