50 Best Hard Rock & Heavy Metal Albums Of 2017

When it comes to selecting the best metal album of this year, I imagine Emperor of Sand topping a lot of people’s lists. With this being Mastodon’s most commercially accessible album yet, it’s worked gangbusters in introducing thousands more to the band’s blend of sludge metal, psychedelic hard rock and progressive music, becoming the quartet’s best-selling album in a first week and hitting number seven on the Billboard charts in the process.

On top of that, reviews have been almost unanimously positive, praising the hints of post-grunge that have begun to permeate Mastodon’s style, as well as the disc feeling like a summary of every one of the band’s prior records. And while I believe that those who call Emperor of Sand Mastodon’s best ever release are probably just swept up in the hype, I can definitely see the mass appeal, with the vocals of Brann Dailor, Troy Sanders and Brent Hinds evolving massively since we last heard them on Once More ‘Round the Sun (2014).

Thus, titanic melodies like those on “Ancient Kingdom” and “Show Yourself” find themselves transgressing into the realm of arena rock, with Foo Fighters-style harmonies punctuating otherwise simple choruses.

Overall, Emperor of Sand feels like a Frankenstein’s monster of an album, patched together out of individual parts of Mastodon’s prior successes, while also clearly possessing a desire to expand upon them with more user-friendly elements. And while some may simply dismiss this as “Mastodon-light”, it somehow works, creating a hard rock record that’s fluid and always engaging.