Metal Reviews

You don't hear any Neurosis? Come on! Troy Sanders sounds so much like Scott Kelly on the first two albums, it's amazing he never got sued.

I can't say I agree with that. There are loose similarities, but Sanders has a much more guttural yell than Scott Kelly. There is palpable anguish in Scott Kelly's vocals, where Sanders' are more angered sounding.

I could be thinking of Steve Von Till, as I'm not sure which is which. However, I still can't pick out Scott's part on Crystal Skull as teir vocals sound very similar. But really, I think Mastodon take a ridiculous amount of Neurosis influence. Listen to when the vocals kick in on "Aeon" and tell me you can't see where Mastodon took their influence

scott kelly does the screaming at 2 minutes-ish that makes yr spine all tingly.he might do some stuff earlier in the song but it's hard to tell

i think Mastodon definitely have a couple of 'neurosis moments' throughout their albums, but generally they're brief so it's not super noticeable.

Quoted for agreement.

Though I will say that, without Neurosis, there might not be a Mastodon.

Here is a good and easy way to find out what a breakdown is...

pop in "Far Beyond Driven" and listen to "I'm Broken".
Fast foward to minute 2:00. Threre's your breakdown. dun-dun-dun-nnnn-dun-dun-dun-nnnn..

and pretty much every song after that has some form of breakdown it. Not all breakdowns go dun-dun-dun, but that is the most basic form.

I think Pantera created metalcore with this album and influenced every other band to do the same.