10 Greatest Hard Rock Songs Of The 2000s
4. Mastodon - “Blood And Thunder”
It can be so difficult to make metal music that’s powerful and heavy enough to appeal to the fans, but not so po-faced as to become embarrassing. Few bands in recent memory have done this as well as Mastodon, whose 2004 album Leviathan is a genuinely accessible metal album that appeals to hardcore genre fans and those more sceptical.
While there are plenty of choice tracks on the Herman Melville-inspired concept album, you can’t go wrong with opener “Blood and Thunder”. A precision-picked riff quickly gives way for heavy, thumping drums, insistent fills, and some of the most metal lyrical content ever put to record.
“Blood and Thunder” introduces us to the Moby-Dick story from the perspective of Captain Ahab, making the monomaniacal seaman’s quest into an anthemic chorus. Mastodon fill all the gaps with their pounding music but nothing’s wasted or superfluous; it’s pristine playing but seldom showy for the sake of it.
The rest of the album carries on in this vein and if anything becomes even more epic as the collision between Ahab and the whale draws ever closer, but this opening track does so much so well.