MASTODON
We got a kinda-but-not-really new album from the Atlanta boys last year, but soon we’ll get the real deal
WORDS: ELEANOR GOODMAN
Mastodon: you want riffs? They’re gonna give you riiiifffffs!
After touring the shit out of 2017’s Emperor Of Sand, Mastodon retired for a break, with a view to getting stuck into a new album at the beginning of 2020. Their timing was on point, given the circumstances. “My wife’s an epidemiologist; she’s working on COVID,” says guitarist Bill Kelliher. “Not that she knows any inside information or anything, but she was like, ‘This is gonna last probably quite a while, so let’s just get comfortable.’ I was cool with it, because I was like, ‘Well, shit! I’m home anyway because we’re just writing a record.’”