Mastodon - Leviathan

Beware! Collosal metal grooves will crush you. Brann dailor is a drumming monster gone berzerk. His heavy drum rolls swirl in and out of the tune, completely swallowing it at times. This kind of metal drumming very rarely comes by, if ever. This is one of the few modern metal bands that actually lend the term modern any meaning. The angry screams of Troy Sanders are so apt for the music. The vocals are quite varied on the album and get pretty innovative in tracks like Seabeast. The guitarist lays down the perfect riffage which sometimes gets amazingly bluesy for the high powered rhythms that Dailor plays. Oddly, it feels as though it is the drummer's heavy fill based drumming that's driving the album unlike the more conventional guitar based structure. Finally, the track Hearts Alive - the longest in the album, clocking 13 mins is one of my favourite tracks by Mastodon. It starts off as a sober piece and takes the listener through a sonic journey which only a band of this caliber can create - not to mention the amazing guitar solo towards the end of the track. This album features some of the best heavy metal chops displayed in the recent years. This one is not for kids or the light hearted. Be ready to get destroyed

Lightning Bolt

Noise. Noise at its loudest. That is how one can describe the music of the drum/bass duo of Lightning Bolt. All efforts to describe their sound in rational terms will eventually prove useless. I write this at a point where I’ve been listening to only LB for more than two weeks. Further listening means you are risking permanent damage to your ear drums. The crazy, incredibly precise drumming of Brian Chippendale leaves one gasping for air. The evil distorted bass of Brian Gibson is definitely going to get you and rip that head of yours. How does one get the idea of replacing one of the bass strings with a banjo string? Wreaking havoc with the sounds thereby produced. The vocals are sung into a telephone receiver. This is one evil evil band, meant for the hardest of the hard-core noise freaks.

I’ve also been incessantly listening to Black Pus, a solo side project of Brian Chippendale, who also writes comic books when he’s not jamming. The first two Black Pus albums are available for free download at http://www.fauxfetus.net/faux/bands/blackpus/ . I find it absolutely impossible to try and describe the sound in Black Pus. Go ahead and find it for yourself!

World Class Listening Problem

I got hold of their latest release. Damon Che proves once again that he is one of the most prolific drummers in the scene today. The spirit of the band hasn't changed at all inspite of Damon being the only member from the previous line-up. They've only gotten more jazzier and the songs are much lesser in length compared to Don Caballero 2, their most acclaimed album. Highly recommended for math rock enthusiasts.