According to the new issue of Resound magazine (the free magazine/mail-order catalog of Relapse Records), MASTODON have set "Blood Mountain" as the tentative title of the follow-up to 2004's "Leviathan", due next summer via Warner Bros.

"We want the whole thing to flow together as one big piece of music, where the end of one song links up with the beginning of the next one," MASTODON drummer Brann Dailor recently told Revolver magazine. "We want the whole experience to be like movements in a symphony."

MASTODON started writing new riffs shortly after completing "Leviathan" and came up with a batch of ideas during various tours. But it was during last summer's Ozzfest that they made their greatest creative progress. "You can't really control when the ideas come," said Dailor. "I always have a dictaphone handy, and [singer] Brent [Hines] and [guitarist] Bill [Kelliher] bring acoustic guitars everywhere, and if they come up with something messing around, we'll record it. We always keep our minds open."

By the time MASTODON started rehearsals in mid-October, they had around 10 songs to evaluate and explore. While it's too early to know exactly what the band's next album will sound like, Dailor says it will likely be more progressive and thrashier. "We've been listening to a lot of newer KING CRIMSON and getting off on that," he explained. "But also, we toured with SLAYER and listened to them every night for three months, and that's gotta have some sort of effect."