Blame it on the rigors of moving home cities yet again, or changing drummers as frequently as Spinal Tap, or trying to best their universally hailed first album Metridium Field: Giant Squid sound exhausted on The Ichthyologist. More depressed than angry. Not so overtly metal. Lethargic in their rhythms, loose in their playing. Maybe it’s all intentional, given the stark emotional terrain of the source material – based on band leader Aaron Gregory’s graphic novel of the same name, The Ichthyologist records the thoughts of a numbed narrator as he turns to the sea to escape the pain of personal tragedy and loss. Gregory’s lyrics dwell in dank, lightless places. If on Metridium Field Giant Squid were skimming the sea’s surface in search of their namesake seabeast, this one finds them sinking, pulled down into the fathomless depths.

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I can’t say enough good things about Giant Squid. They just fucking rock your face off. Period. If you dig bands like Mastodon and Kylesa, you will dig Giant Squid. And they have a new album coming out, The Ichthyologist, for which they’ve now released the artwork (above) and track listing. And, oh yeah, an awesome new song, “Blue Linckia,” which you can hear right now on their MySpace page.

Here’s a statement from singer/guitarist Aaron Gregory:

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In 2006, San Francisco’s Giant Squid released Metridium Fields, which is, to put it mildly, a fucking doozy of an album. Lucky for all of us, then, the band has just completed work at that record’s follow-up, as singer/guitarist Aaron Gregory tells us in a press release:

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This was a real shocker when I read it last week; apparently the next Mastodon album will be produced by Brendan O’Brien, a man who’s most famous projects include Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Train, The Offspring and Incubus. The man does have some metal cred, having produced King’s X (Dogman – props) and Rage Against the Machine, and having mixed a number of other notable projects, but still; this strikes me as an odd pairing, as does the decision to leave behind Matt Bayles, who helmed the past three Mastodon records. I’m thinking one of the following:

• The band wants to move in a different, more rock direction
• Warner / Reprise were dissatisfied with the sales of Blood Mountain and want the band to write more commercial music, taking it to the next level.

This is definitely a “what the fuck?” moment. Either the results could be groundbreaking or they could be disastrous. This is a very important album for Mastodon; having vaulted into the big leagues with Blood Mountain, everyone is expecting big things. Will it live up to expectations?

-VN