Who knew that writing a concept album around Herman Melville’s turgid aquatic masterwork Moby-Dick could be cool? It was a little weak willed of Mastodon not to include tracks that mirror the extended chapters of cetalogical musings on whale species – that would be impressive.

Leviathan is as murky and unsettling as its literary counterpart, this doom-laden epic is intricate and perfectly conceived. Hearts Alive is its 13 minute epic culmination and centre-piece. Slow-building and creepy, it finally explodes into a stunning instrumental crescendo as monomaniac Captain Ahab finally takes battle with his quarry – the white whale.

Whereas most of the guitar solos mentioned thus far stray further into the “technically impressive” category, this falls squarely in the “Exactly exactly where it should be doing precisely what it should” category. Seemingly bubbling from the depths in an arpeggio maelstrom, this majestic piece of stringsmithery smashes through the tension built through the album making for an exhilarating conclusion to the saga.

Tags: Mastodon

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Solos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.