Mastodon release their anxiously awaited ninth full-length album, Hushed and Grim, via Reprise Records. Over the past year, the group recorded Hushed and Grim in their hometown, collaborating with producer David Bottrill [Tool, Rush, Muse, Peter Gabriel] behind the board. As their most ambitious body of work to date, it consists of 15 tracks, surveying sonic landscapes of rock, psychedelia, punk, metal, alternative, and prog threaded together by the innately expressive musical interplay of these four virtuosic musicians. They’ve once again progressed exponentially as songwriters and musicians who transcend genres while unapologetically refusing to conform and preserving the integrity that transformed them into an iconic and influential forces in modern rock music. By removing boundaries and creating in a free form they evolved with a combination of newfound melodic confidence and their signature musical intricacy intact. In the end, Hushed and Grim is hard-hitting, hypnotic, and heart-wrenching.