Once More 'Round the Sun

“I can see what the world has done to you / I can feel the weight,” sings Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor on “The Motherload,” one of the strongest tracks on the Atlanta metal band’s sixth album, Once More ’Round The Sun. There’s a weariness to that title, and to the lyrics, but “The Motherload” doesn’t show it. First…

The Atlantans continue down the more commercial road they began on with their biggest hit yet, The Hunter

Check out our album review of Artist's Once More ‘Round The Sun on Rolling Stone.com.

Despite becoming one of the biggest metal bands around, Mastodon manage to keep much of the same edge as an underground band.

Given the title of its sixth release, it's fair to wonder if Mastodon is hinting at 2011's The Hunter or its back catalog.

“All my heroes, they’re all dead,” Troy Sanders bellows on Chimes At Midnight’s apocalyptic bridge. It’s another plunge into the abyss from the Atlantan behemoths; billed as a logical successor to 2011’s The Hunter, Mastodon return hard with a full clip of psychedelic sludge-rock bangers, firing up the lava lamp to find the middle ground between their heaviest hour (2006’s concrete shattering Blood Mountain) and their most accessibly progressive (2009’s cosmic odyssey Crack the Skye).

It seems there are two camps in the Mastodon universe: people who like Mastodon, and people who used to like Mastodon.

MASTODON's continued inching toward an accessible rock sound is no doubt going to be met with enmity by some, which sucks, considering they play at a higher level than damned near anyone in metal music. Rare is the occasion when a band as complex and progressive as MASTODON is sacrifices none of the...

A review of Once More 'Round the Sun by Mastodon, available worldwide on June 24th via Reprise Records.

One of modern metal's most admired bands return with an album that could edge them closer still to the mainstream, writes <strong>Dom Lawson</strong>

Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun review: A blueprint of how to go commercial without sacrificing one's artistic identity.

Avant-prog-metallers make an album to "headbang for hours" to. Review by Russ Coffey