The sludge prog maestro’s Mastodon routinely produce a new album every three years. However, 2024 has proved to be a fallow year, allowing Cobra the Impaler to slip in and produce the best album Mastodon have made since the revolutionary “Crack the Skye”.

This is modern prog metal and is its absolute zenith. It is an astoundingly good record that is over-spilling with interesting and often anarchic ideas. It enjoys playing fast and loose with metal’s many conventions and cohesions, whilst still resolutely remaining a heavy metal record.

It fantastically combines aggression with slick melody and stunning songcraft. It just sounds absolutely amazing in the way that it mixes different styles to create and concoct something very different but very awesome.