Photo courtesy of Dana Gorab

I’ve been a massive fan of Mastodon for a very long time. Actually, I can pinpoint the exact date to when I grabbed their album, Leviathan, from Best Buy back in 2004. I’m actually a huge nautical nut also, and their album cover with the stylized art of Moby Dick caught my eye. So, I sat there in the parking lot waiting for my tattoo session and listened through this amazing and new sound of this band that has been in my top three for nearly two decades now.

Fast forward to the COVID era, recounting the highlights in the intervening years: marriage, moves across the country, a second degree in music, career changes, more moving, the loss of our first child, the birth of our twins and more career changes.

I’ve noticed that since I’ve become a parent, sometimes even benign things can heighten my emotions, so it made a lot of sense to me that when I went to see one of the first post-COVID shows with Opeth and Mastodon, I was very receptive to the experience, especially owing to the fact that despite the fact of how much I loved this band, this was going to be the first time I’d seen them live.

So, I jockeyed my way close to the stage and was four bodies back directly in front of Brent Hinds, and Mastodon proceeded to play an amazing show. They played pretty much all the songs that I would want to see (though, to be fair, if they played every song I wanted to see, their hands would probably fall off).

Anyways, they played some amazing stuff, and quite a few songs from their newest album, Hushed and Grim. I wasn’t as familiar with this release as their previous stuff, so it was fun to almost go in with no expectations. I also know how personal their music is to them, and how it speaks to many of their personal experiences, so when they played their song “More Than I Could Chew” I was floored. The melodies, and vocals, and the song’s structure spoke to me and because I have also experienced loss in a very specific way, it brought the emotions hard.

Mastodon continues to be a huge inspiration to me and the music I create with Cthulhu Dreamt, and a band I can listen to regardless of the mood I’m in.