Artist: Mastedon
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2009
Length: 59:53
Rating: 5/5
After almost 20 years, brothers John and Dino Elefante have decided to put out a third studio album under the Mastedon banner. No need to guess where the name comes from. It’s from the surname of the two gentlemen. Well, almost, because the “mastodon” was an extinct proboscidean and an ancestor of today’s elephants, whose remains were also dug up in Škale near Velenje in 1964. But let’s wander back from paleontology to music!
John and Dino Elefante are musical masters who released the first and second Mastedon albums in 1989 and 1990. The excellent debut “It’s A Jungle Out There” was still wobbling a bit in terms of melodic rock engraving, but as such it laid the foundation for a genre classic, and one of the central albums of Christian (white) rock, titled “Lofcaudio” (1990), which belongs in the collection of every true-believing defender of the inexhaustible empire of melodic / AOR rock perfection.
Almost 20 years go by. In that time the players on the album mature artistically. John and Dino rediscover the expressive power of organic, warm sound. The warmth of Hammond organs returns to the polished sound of “Lofcaudio”, along with other tones that lean closer to piano. The guitar riffing is measured in the sonic picture and doesn’t take the lead. Yet it builds an important mass in the background of the sound. That mass is outstanding in, say, Slay Your Demons, where the band lays down an arabesque that drives the content of the song (instrumentally speaking).
Interestingly, Dave Amato from REO Speedwagon is still a Mastedon member on the third album, this time handling only guitar, even though he proved on the first and second Mastedon albums what an exceptional singer he is. This time around, former Kansas mainstay Kerry Livgren also joins in on guitar. Right away the question: does Mastedon’s “3” sound anything like Kansas? Not really, but when you get to the 10-minute epic One Day Down by the Lake (See You Real Soon), richly dynamic, vibrantly breathing in the color collages offered by the individual building blocks of Mastedon’s music, with heavenly production, it becomes clear. Certain arrangements could only have come out of Livgren’s head. This is the album’s progressive moment. The grandiose sound that builds the harmonic curtain in the background can be a real little master class in how to achieve a dramatic, solemn atmosphere. A harmonized backdrop of multi-part guitar lines and keyboards. Layers of guitar embellishments washing over the top. A dynamic, voluminous bass line with a heaping dose of melody, active drumming. It all works in an exceptional interplay heated to just the right working temperature.
John Elefante’s vocals are spotless. That signature soul engraving, which he skillfully uses to liven up the vocal lines, a highly melodic voice, explosive, sparkling and commanding, yet in the quiet parts subcutaneously sophisticated and tangibly soulful. Every time I hear it, Bobby Kimball of Toto pops into my head. And funny enough, John once even got an offer to join Toto.
If in 1989 the band’s sound could represent a bridge between “Drastic Measures” (the second record, where John stood in for Walsh in Kansas) and the hard Christian (white) rock acts Stryper, Whiteheart, Guardian, Petra or Idle Cure, then the album “3”, or the face of Mastedon in 2009, stands completely on its own, distilled out of all the comparison pools of genre bands. What it does share with the bands listed is the sermon running through the verses. So yes. In that respect “3” belongs in Christian rock. And yes. John Elefante and Neal Morse (ex-Spock’s Beard) are friends on MySpace!
Still, you can catch it in all its exposed perfection of melodic curves, and generally polished vocal harmonies, in the “Boston-esque” chorus of the third track Nowhere Without Your Love. If you’re looking for the chiseled hit of the album “3”, the kind that would have filled the radio airwaves in the golden AOR or arena rock days of the late eighties, look to the perfection of the compact chorus of You Can’t Take Anything and the associations can carry you all the way back to 1988 and the arena rock of Mastodon’s “pulse-raiser” Get Up.
In short, it’s all here. Inspiration, outstanding ideas for delivering compact melodies of high atmosphere, which Mastedon market to the max with the help of rich knowledge and mastery of the craft. The backdrop of a massive sonic curtain, in full harmonies, won’t let you breathe from the first to the last second of this album. You’ll get goosebumps if you’re even a tiny bit receptive to the magic that the AOR / melodic rock approach of the most pure-blooded kind can offer (for 2009, of course!). An approach that is pushed into the underground today, but in that underground, through the years of obscurity, it matured artistically, grew up and grew into a new qualitative face of musical expression. The mid-tempo Lying probably skims the cream off the top of the dessert here, but with compact, concise songs that compete among themselves over which will take the primacy in perfectly salted choruses, it’s hard to single out highlights. Except for the aforementioned 10-minute epic, which, as said, stands apart, since it smells of Kansas. The other, shorter songs thrill with choruses that are all built on the same principle, yet at the same time achieve outstanding motivic separation. That’s the guarantee of the album’s high dynamics, in which the theatrical, manifold moods don’t let up for a moment. Be it the opening Revolution In Mind, or That’s What You Do, which closes the album.
It’s interesting that the band chose to cover the Kansas classic Dust In The Wind, where acoustic collages step to the fore for the only time on the album. Once again a top-notch execution, which nevertheless can’t compete with the untouchable greatness of the original. Regardless, the rest of the material is chiseled with such compositional and production perfection that it never stops rewarding the listener. An album hewn from a pure five out of five. From head to toe. As such it represents one of the highlights of melodic rock album releases for 2009!
Line-up
John Elefante – vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards
Dave Amato – lead guitar
Kerry Livgren – lead guitar
Dino Elefante – additional guitars, acoustic guitar, backing vocals
Anthony Sallee – bass guitar
Dan Needham – drums
Production
John Elefante
Track list
1. Revolution of Mind
2. Slay Your Demons
3. Nowhere Without Your Love
4. One Day Down by the Lake (See You Real Soon)
5. Water Into Wine (Fassa Rokka)
6. Questions (It’s About Time)
7. You Can’t Take Anything
8. Lying
9. The Western World
10. That’s What You Do
11. Dust in the Wind
