Mastodon

Emerging from Atlanta, Mastodon ranks among the most distinctive and impactful American metal groups to surface in the new millennium. Their expansive progressive vision draws from stoner and sludge metal, punishing hardcore and metalcore, neo-psych, death metal, and additional styles. The quartet's approach features technically demanding guitar riffs, vocal hooks, extended melodic instrumental sections, and complex drumming marked by jazz influences and syncopated meters. Issued in 2004, their sophomore release Leviathan offered a concept piece rooted in Herman Melville's classic novel Moby Dick and marked the band's first major commercial success. Critics have since hailed the album as one of the defining works in the genre's history. The conceptual The Hunter from 2011 signaled the group's deepening prog leanings by channeling influences that stretched from King Crimson to Opeth. Emperor of Sand, released in 2017, entered the Billboard Top Ten and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album, while the single "Sultan's Curse" captured the award for Best Metal Performance. Transformation and growth, Mastodon's core principle, remain as central to their sound as the lineup itself. Medium Rarities appeared in 2020 with live recordings, covers, and instrumental pieces. Mastodon resumed full studio work in 2021 via the double album Hushed and Grim, then joined Lamb of God for the 2024 single "Floods of Triton."

Mastodon came together in 1999 through guitarist Bill Kelliher, drummer Bränn Dailor, bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders, and guitarist/vocalist Brent Hinds. As a prominent example of the New Wave of American Heavy Metal, the style that arose in the mid-'90s via Pantera, Biohazard, and Machine Head, the band fused multiple metal subgenres with sharp lyricism and quickly established itself as a leading act of the early 21st century.

United by shared admiration for the Melvins, Black Sabbath, Neurosis, and Thin Lizzy, Mastodon secured a contract with Relapse Records, home to Today Is the Day, Dillinger Escape Plan, and Coalesce, after submitting a four-song demo in 2001. The EP Lifesblood followed that year, and the full-length debut Remission arrived in 2002. While the record earned respect within metal circles, it was Leviathan in 2004 that introduced the band's eclectic proto-metal approach to a wider audience. Both refined and melodic yet ferocious and boundary-pushing, the album, loosely inspired by Herman Melville's Moby Dick, represented a pivotal moment and landed on year-end Top Ten lists spanning many genres. Leviathan also included a guest vocal from Neurosis frontman Scott Kelly, initiating a pattern that continued on every subsequent full-length.

The band's rising profile led to a Warner Bros. agreement, though not before Relapse issued Call of the Mastodon, a remastered collection of early demo material, and the DVD Workhorse Chronicles in 2006. Third album Blood Mountain reached number 32 on the Billboard charts and received a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance for "Colony of Birchmen." The release set a new chart high and paved the way for the long-awaited Crack the Skye in 2009. In 2011 Mastodon delivered the CD/DVD Live at the Aragon, captured in Chicago on the Crack the Skye tour. They soon returned with fresh material on fifth album The Hunter, which scaled back the prog emphasis and achieved major commercial success by peaking at number ten on the Billboard charts.

Also in 2011, Troy Sanders stepped away temporarily to form the metal supergroup Killer Be Killed alongside Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist Greg Puciato, Soulfly's Max Cavalera, and former Mars Volta drummer Dave Elitch. He contributed to the project intermittently until its 2014 debut album. Mastodon remained the priority. After touring Europe and South America in 2012, the band began work on its sixth album the next year with producer Nick Raskulinecz. Once More 'Round the Sun emerged in June 2014, led by the sludgy single "High Road."

Over the following two years, several members' family members faced cancer diagnoses. Sanders' wife Jeza underwent treatment for breast cancer and recovered in 2015; Kelliher's mother passed away from a brain tumor in 2016, and Dailor's mother received a similar diagnosis. These events shaped the lyrics of seventh album Emperor of Sand, produced by Brendan O'Brien and released in 2017. Its narrative, centered on a curse issued by a desert ruler upon a traveler, was described by Dailor in interviews as an allegory for cancer. Medium Rarities arrived in late summer 2020 as a collection of instrumentals, live cuts, and covers. Fronted by the previously unreleased single "Fallen Torches," recorded with Neurosis' Kelly on guest vocals, the 16-track set featured interpretations of Feist's "A Commotion," Metallica's "Orion," Flaming Lips' "A Spoonful Weighs a Ton," and "Atlanta" with Gibby Haynes. It also contained "White Walker," the band's contribution to the HBO series Game of Thrones.

Mastodon released the expansive double album Hushed and Grim in October 2021. Produced by David Bottrill, whose credits include Tool, Rush, and Peter Gabriel, the 15-track effort was written and tracked across a year and drew from death and sludge metal, alt and hard rock, psychedelia, punk, and prog. In 2024 the band issued the kinetic single "Floods of Triton" with tourmates Lamb of God to mark the twentieth anniversary of Leviathan and Ashes of the Wake.