Mastodon - The Wolf is Loose

Having been brought up as a metalhead before veering off to listen to more experimental music, people often recommend bands that they think will fulfil the criteria of being interesting whilst retaining the dark adrenaline aggro of hard metal. Mastodon are one such band, and if this is what parades as intelligent metal, there is truly no hope. Sounding like Iron Maiden, not quite hitting the time signatures through generic nu-industrial-metal production - this is like a parody of Metal Hammer motifs. Then again, maybe this isn't representative of the rest of Mastodon's material. [Ali Maloney]