It's Valentine's Day. While some enjoy candlelit dinners and others stumble drunkenly to Kingdom’s 'Snogathon', Corporation falls for the mighty Mastodon. And how mighty they are. Mastodon means 'large mammoth' and latest album Leviathan, meaning 'sea monster', is a concept album based upon Moby Dick. The music is a churning concoction of metal, prog and jazz, which sounds as immense as the beastly names imply.  | | Mastodon; 'there's definitely beauty in the beast' |
After being seduced by Burst's and Dozer's formidable support, the latter coming across like a Swedish hybrid of Soundgarden and Kyuss trapped in an eternal jam session, the crowd were more than prepared for Mastodon. The band arrived onstage to the sounds of the sea, before raising their arms like four victorious Ishmaels, poised to deliver dark aquatic tales. Like old-Testament fables of damnation, Megalodon's doomy prog stylings swirled through the room in an invisible whirlpool, Blood and Thunder's epic refrains rolled gloriously across the walls and the frantic riffage of I Am Ahab sounded deliciously deranged. Atlanta's new metalcore pioneers certainly play with precision, practicing the art of linear head banging one minute and spinning into syncopated turmoil the next. For Mastodon's music is as directionless as it is tight. Songs swim aimlessly into unpredictable and uncharted waters, often in serious danger of losing the plot. Clearly, like Ahab himself, Mastodon revels in the madness of the journey as much as the destination itself. Yet, with a tuneful riff or a well-placed change in rhythm they consistently succeed in bringing things full circle. Here, with the sonic power representative of a colossal being and the sea of literary references, there is a distinct poetic quality in their performance that is impossible to dislike. With Mastodon, there's definitely beauty in the beast. | 
