3 out of 5

Label: Relapse

Producer: Matt Bayles

Does it sound like Matodon?  Without a doubt.  Is it technically jaw-dropping with jarringly fast madness on drums and guitar?  For sure.  But in collecting tracks from ‘Lifesblood,’ the group’s first EP (or ‘alternate, re-ordered versions’ of those songs, according to wiki) as well as a 2000 3-song single, we’re getting a glimpse of the group in its formative years.  It’s not showboating, per se, but the group wasn’t yet comfortable exploring space and contrasts – as an average track runtime of 3:00 can attest – and so there’s simply no breathing space here.  Even a track like ‘Thank You For This,’ which tries to introduce a slower riff, can’t help but explode into bombast a few seconds in.  And, typical for early recordings, the band’s identity wasn’t fully formed.  While I’m sure the songs tell a story, it doesn’t give off that same feeling of cohesion other albums have, with the movie-snippet intro to several tracks a ‘standard’ metal staple that gives the EP a middling feel to it, all technical flair aside.  There also pops up some moments that pull more directly from post-hardcore vs. metal, such as a few guitar swipes sounding very Botch-ish.

But it’s easy to cast it in this light knowing what the band would evolve into.  ‘Call of the Mastodon’ is still an essential listen – ‘Lifesblood’ might be a common find in used bins but ‘Slickleg,’ from the 3-song single, is an excellent track that stands on par with current work, and apparently the original version of ‘Call of the Mastodon’ was with the old vocalist, so you get a new version with Brent Hinds here.  On the whole, at 30 minutes, the rapid-fire, no-rest tempo makes some of this bleed together, and neither the guitar work or Hind’s vocals had found their mark at this point, turning in mostly standard hardcore / metal chugga-chugga riffs and growling.  …But there’s no doubt at all that this band had skill from the get-go, and if the music here had been your first exposure, you know you would’ve been eagerly waiting for whatever came next.