Mastodon did not really prefer to play a quiet set. The premier Atlanta metal mariners just thought they'd enjoy performing in an aquarium, and they didn't want to scare the occupants. A compromise was reached: Mastodon did not play very quietly, but they refrained from brandishing harpoons and limited their Moby Dick references.
The result was satisfying if odd. Not so much a live show as a filmic pastiche, the hourlong "Captured Live" presented beautiful skeletons selected from 20 years of Mastodon compositions. Fish paraded behind the band on the other side of a glass wall; we were also treated to superimpositions of sharks and giant squid that seemed to swim across the frame, menacing the affable Southerners.
The most appropriate moment arrived after hairy Brent Hinds fingerpicked a darkly undercurrented intro to "Pendulous Skin," when the quartet broke into a water-treading lope behind the tom-heavy beat of Brann Dailor, and bassist Tony Sanders' voice was treated with a scuba electronic effect. Hinds and co-guitarist Bill Kelliher displayed excellent tonesmanship throughout, as on Hinds' cranky wah lead during the heavy-waltzing "The Czar." Though lacking virtuosic vocal ability, all four sang with natural skill, often combining for spooky harmonic atmospheres. Reverence for departed friends and family came through clearly.
Mastodon's studio albums, with their liberal guitar distortion and Dailor's impressive polyrhythms, give an impression of powerful murk. Here, cleaner Spanish, folk and Middle Eastern flavors, blended with artful structural changes, left us thinking how lyrical it all was. As Dailor said in one of the mostly unenlightening interviews that intruded before every song, "We can't help it, we're just pretty."
The fish seemed to like it.
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Through Sunday 7/19, you can catch a replay of "Captured Live" here.