Mastodon - Blood Mountain

first off, i'd like to say that it's been many years since i've bailed early on a night of drinking for the sole purpose of going home and listening to a new album.
secondly, let me tell you what this album sounds like.
imagine Yes at their most proggy-fantastical (circa Close To The Edge and Fragile); now imagine that the members of Yes are angry, fourteen-foot tall Minotaurs who play with the technical majesty of 80's Maiden and the speed and ferocity of Reign In Blood era Slayer.
also, one of them might have a hard on for Lightning Bolt.
never could i have forseen that the record i'd go the most ga-ga for in 2006 would be a heavy metal concept album about a man scaling a mountain in search of a Crystal Skull and chronicalling the beasts and hallucinations he encounters along the way.
absolutely epic.
the song Capillarian Crest contains some the the most mind-bending guitar-o-batics i've ever heard.
toward the end of Circle Of Cysquatch (a one-eyed Sasquatch that can see into the future) we actually hear the 'Squatch's horrible voice, as he warns of the Colony Of Birchmen that lie only two songs further up the hideous mountain trail.
and Bladecatcher? Bladecatcher is just fucked.
but it's not all earth-shattering heaviosity; there are peaks and crests of majestic beauty sprinkled throughout, but it's quite a journey to reach them.
it's daunting, there's a lot to digest here. i'm not even sure how it ends or if it's even supposed to end or if the end is somewhere else completely.
i do know that if you listened to this record for the first time on mushrooms in a dark forest, you would die.
my inner myth-nerd: satisfied!
my inner headbanger: satisfied!
my inner have sex with two chicks at the same time guy: still not satisfied!