Mastodon: Amazement in metal at the Troc

For the last 12 years, Mastodon, Atlanta's nü-Monsters of Rock, have grown beyond their status as crushing cult favorites to become America's best metal band, according to Rolling Stone magazine.

Sunday night's sardine-packed crowd at the Trocadero certainly thought so. Rather than act out the usual devil-horn-waving and frat-boy-hollering you get from most metal-head audiences, most of the crowd stood in rapt amazement, quiet even as their fuzzy-headed heroes - bassist/vocalist Troy Sanders and guitarist/singer Brent Hinds - spun their mad tales with quick prog-rock complexities.

If it weren't for their intense instrumentation, Hinds' diabolical guitar interplay with second stringer Bill Kelliher and the quartet's pulsating rhythms from drummer Bränn Dailor, who swung as much as he jack-hammered, Mastodon's alt-metal aesthetic could have come across as some bizarre, theatrical mashup of evil stoner kitsch.

When bassist Sanders used his FX-laden doom growl (as he did throughout the proceedings) to sing, "I burned out my eyes / I cut off my tongue / I sealed them with all of the silver / Now I have none" during the thrashing song "Black Tongue," there was clearly something silly about the level of cartoon violence. What sold those harsh lyrics, though, was Hinds' harmony vocals and a sexy guitar signature that would have made Black Sabbath's Tony Iommi proud.

This was Mastodon's greatest gift: For all of the band's daffy lyrical themes and monotone singing, they sold their rage with blunt-force musicality. And Hinds' (occasional) vocals and snaky guitar lines led the charge.

Tunes from Mastodon's album The Hunter, released in September, offered more melodic choruses than Mastodon's older material. The swiftly galloping "Dry Bone Valley" and the squealing "Colony of Birchmen" came across as tortured-sounding, yet gloomily magical, rivaling Metallica at its early peak.

Let's be clear, though. For a raging metal band whose songs are often deeply conceptual, multipart epics with fantastical themes featuring fire ants and sky hunters, Mastodon's stage show was boring by comparison. No pyrotechnics. The lead players just stood there, glaring and blaring. (Then again, Kelliher had a pretty interesting mustache.) Ultimately, though, their approached worked: Mastodon's metallic roar was probably best served cold, without adornment or spectacle.