Given how much of their career Mastodon have spent refining, polishing, smoothing out and mellowing out their sound, it’s pretty jarring going from any of their post-Crack the Skye material to anything they before that album. That said even sticking to their early career, this still sounds wild and unhinged next to the still much more refined Leviathan, say. Remission is the sound of a hungry and ambitious band with a decent amount of experience on their respective instruments, and in many ways is a peak performance in their lengthy career. It’s not quite their best album overall but it easily contains a lot of their best moments, songs, performances, etc. and still stands as a landmark album for both sludge metal and metal as a whole.

At this point in their career, Mastodon played a heavy as hell sludge metal sound that they’d already displayed on their previous material, and they really turn it up a notch here and continue to do their sound justice, with the music being even better crafted and performed and some new ideas being attempted. Remission‘s tracks can be sorted into one of two groups according to their songwriting style – the first consists of generally shorter, more energetic groove/sludge numbers that are essentially a denser, more chaotic and refined version of what was present on their early demos and EPs. The other half meanwhile consists of the longer, more melodic and drawn out progressive/sludge metal numbers with more mellow acoustic/lead-driven sections and sparser vocals. What’s consistent throughout the album though is its production, which sounds amazing. The drum kit sounds thunderous and full, the guitar tone is very dense, thick and big, the overall sound of the album is polished and rich and heavy but not too even as to prevent instruments from bleeding together a bit or sanding the music of its abrasion, and the mix lets everything come through clearly. It’s another obvious step up from their pre-album material which sounded pretty good but does not compare to the professional and monstrous presentation here.

There are other elements consistent to both types of song here, one of them being the vocals, which are performed by bassist Troy Sanders and guitarist Brent Hinds. The vocals here are perhaps the strongest of any Mastodon album; while they are inherently less varied as little clean singing is utilised here, the beefy hardcore barks throughout the album are still commanding, aggressive, rapid-fire and powerful, standing up to the grinding, and crushing heaviness of the instrumentation behind them. And then of course there is the drumming, which is probably the most famous aspect of Mastodon’s earlier career; hearing these songs, it’s easy to see why. Brann’s drumming is absolutely frantic; these songs are machine-gunned with bouts of showboating fills and other assorted flashy techniques and patterns. He doesn’t forget his role as the timekeeper and rhythmic skeleton of the music of course; and that’s perhaps the best thing about his performance. In spite of the technical flair he manages to roll all of his fills into the framework of the music, meaning the drums and guitars never fit together awkwardly as he never throws off the timing of his drumming. Rather than taking away from the music he only adds to the cacophony, dynamics and chaos of the music by interspersing his more restrained moments with fill after fill. For this reason I think it’s incorrect to say Brann has no restraint or taste, as I find his drumming in general to be far more tastefully applied than say, Derek Roddy’s unending blasting or the constant double bass of some power metal drummers.

As stated, the shorter songs here are very dense and somewhat chaotic; they’re not overtly technical, speedy, dissonant or noisy in the way mathcore or grindcore can be but there is still an emphasis on frequent change-ups in the riffs and drums. The aforementioned excellent drumming from Brann is especially notable on these tracks; he really adds a lot to the chaos, flow and tension of these tracks with his flashy yet tasteful performance. The riffs meanwhile are crushingly heavy, groovy, rapid and percussive with just an undercurrent of melody, locking in perfectly with the drums – from the instantaneously memorable grooves of ‘Crusher Destroyer’ and ‘March of the Fire Ants’ (note also the latter’s beautiful melodic break halfway through) to the churning of ‘Where Strides the Behemoth’ to the choppy thrashing of ‘Burning Man’, a great majority of the guitarwork here hits much harder and is much more memorable than what was on their older material. The riffs really anchor and drive these songs forward, ensuring they become and remain some of most memorable and exciting songs of their entire career, as well as the stronger set of songs on the album.

The lengthier tracks here are slower, more patient, droning, atmospheric and progressive – and they’re easily the less exciting breed of song here, even though they are more indicative of their later direction. Whether in isolation or in the context of the album, they’re merely solid as opposed to absolutely stunning; they’re nice enough while on but they definitely drag the momentum of the more energetic songs down once they start. The rhythm section on these songs is a lot more restrained; the riffs are less technical and choppy, being of the more pure and drawn out sludge variety than anything groovy or thrashy. Brann’s drumming is a lot more measured on these songs with fills coming far less frequently and his beats in general being slower to match the slower pacing. They’re still some of the better lengthy songs they’ve written however; with the crushing sludge riffs aided by the big guitar sound driving the songs forward more than anything from Crack the Skye, and the all too sparingly used vocals and technical drumming going with the riffing nicely. Also of note are the more melodic leads and acoustic guitars found in them (this is especially prominent during ‘Elephant Man’.) These elements being worked into songs alongside their sludgy sound is predictive of what would come to fruition on Blood Mountain and are some of the better moments on the album in general. That said, it’s clear from these songs and most of their later albums that restraint is absolutely not what Mastadon are good at; that the best songs here are no holds barred bangers that throw everything at the wall is not a coincidence.

Despite the inconsistent quality and flow of the tracklist, this is still overall a great album and one of the band’s best. The drumming, riffing and vocals are some of the best performances the band would ever churn out, and this still has the best production of any of their albums. The shorter songs are some of their best tracks ever and the longer songs, while weaker, are still pretty good and at least show a band that was willing to try new things and vary up their music. They’re also proof that they needn’t flush the quality of their music down the toilet by trading in uncompromising heaviness for progression and atmosphere, something they would learn on the next two albums and seemingly unlearn in the years following those. All that aside, this is a very good album; a sludge metal classic that should be heard a few times by any metal fan.