Alt 101.7 and Pepsi have teamed up to present Metal Monday! This week we're featuring Atlanta's Mastodon!

Mastodon was formed on January 13, 2000, after drummer Brann Dailor and guitarist Bill Kelliher moved to Atlanta from Victor, New York, and met bassist/singer Troy Sanders and guitarist/singer Brent Hinds at a High on Fire show. They discovered they had a mutual appreciation of bands such as The Melvins, Neurosis, Iron Maiden, and Thin Lizzy. As soon as the musical connection was made, Mastodon was born!

It was sort of hard for me to pick "the best" Mastodon album but I think I've spent most of my time on 2006's Blood Mountain. This was when I first head their music and if I remember correctly, I only listened to the record to hear a guest vocal track from one of my favorite front men, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age. He appears on Colony of Birchmen, the album's seventh song. I was hooked from that point on.

The band's seventh album, Emperor of Sand, was released on March 31, 2017, and features the band's most commercially successful song to date, Show Yourself. The album's opening track, Sultan's Curse, earned them their first Grammy award.

They've got seven records out with the newest, Hushed and Grim, to be released on October 29, 2021.

Call them heavy metal, progressive metal, sludge rock, stoner rock, whatever. It's hard, melodic, and fierce! Delve into any one of their records and let me know. Leave your comment below!

Follow along with everything Mastodon is up to on their website.

More From Alt 101.7