GENRE / PROGRESSIVE & SLUDGE METAL

WHAT IT IS / WHEN

Sludge came out of New Orleans and the American South in the early 1990s — Eyehategod, Crowbar — as Black Sabbath riffs slowed to a crawl and covered in feedback. Mastodon, formed in Atlanta in 2000, spliced that onto progressive metal's polyrhythms and Neurosis's post-metal builds, then wrote concept albums about Moby-Dick (Leviathan, 2004) and out-of-body travel (Crack the Skye, 2009).

SIGNIFICANT ARTISTS

Eyehategod, Crowbar, Neurosis, Isis, Baroness, High on Fire, Gojira, Elder. Mastodon's line-up is unusual for having three singers — Troy Sanders, Brent Hinds and drummer Brann Dailor — and a drummer who plays lead-guitar-density fills as a matter of course.

TRIVIA

The Hunter (2011) is named for and dedicated to Brent Hinds' brother Brad, who died of a heart attack while hunting during the writing sessions. "The Sparrow" closes the album on a single repeated mantra — pursue happiness with diligence — over an eight-minute crescendo, and it is the closest the band has come to writing an elegy outright.

SONIC SIGNATURE

Guitars tuned down (usually to C# or drop-C) with a mid-scooped but grainy tone, bass playing a genuinely independent melodic line rather than doubling the riff, and drums that never settle into a straight backbeat. The Sparrow specifically inverts the formula: clean arpeggios, layered choral vocals, and a slow additive build where each pass adds one more instrument.

KEY GEAR

Gibson Flying V and Silvertone guitars, Diezel VH4 and Marshall JMP heads, Emperor cabs, a Sunn/Ampeg bass rig split into clean and distorted paths. Dailor plays a large Tama kit with two rack toms and an oversized ride, tuned high so fills read as melodic. Analogue fuzz — Big Muff, Fuzz Factory — is used for texture, not saturation.

RATIONALE & PRODUCTION

The Hunter was produced by Mike Elizondo, who came from a pop/hip-hop background (Dr. Dre, Eminem, Fiona Apple), and the choice was deliberate: shorter songs, clearer vocal placement, less murk. Guitars are double-tracked and panned wide, the bass is DI'd and re-amped so it survives the mid-scoop, and the room mics on the drums are pushed up hard during the final build.

TRACKS IN THIS GENRE

Each control plays a ten-second excerpt of the track, taken from its catalogue preview clip.

• The SparrowMastodon[►]