Like The Dillinger Escape Plan before them Mastodon are on a seemingly unstoppable mission to bring their live show to every corner of the globe, returning again and again until you’ve finally realised how fuggin important they are to today’s metal scene. Undoubtedly on the cusp of a new era in an ever-evolving scene, following the melody-mangling maggot-corp of Slipknot and the big-bucks angst-rap of Linkin Park, Mastodon are the next truly huge behemoths creeping over the horizon, replete with equally shaggy barnets & facial hair, and backed by an album so monstrously inventive it’s a surprise half these songs don’t have their own patent!

Declared an outright classic by all who’ve heard it ‘Leviathon’ is an astounding piece of work, borne from the pain and plight of it's predecessor 'Remission' and triggering a feral response from even the most reserved heavy music fan. So when you’re stood in the presence of the men who crafted such intensity, mere metres away from vocalist / bassist Troy Sanders grimacing wildly as his dirt-spun bass grinds and growls beneath him the sheer feeling is one akin to a 200mph Back to the Future-style steam train hurtling towards you, your flesh turning to jelly and your eyes burning wide with adrenaline as you stare helplessly while it passes through you.

And it’s with such unstoppable momentum that Mastodon unleash their venom, Sanders' smog-chuffing riffs tearing through the musical landscape as in ‘Iron Tusk’, whilst the accomplished drumming of (the incredibly friendly) Brann Dailor triggers a mass neck-hair erection in an ad libed drum solo near the song’s end, just about every person in the room momentarily paralysed by the band before them.

Answering calls for more from the audience the band fill the remaining 4 minutes before the, newly relocated, Sheffield Corporation’s curfew with an impressive and suitably intense run-through The Melvins’ ‘The Bit’, inadvertently reminding many of us to buy our tickets for their imminent Electric Ballroom or ATP appearance!

By the time they reluctantly leave the stage to finish off the 4 crates of beer and numerous bottles of spirits rumoured to have been requested on their rider our ears still tremble with a kind of nervous delight at the sheer magnitude of Mastodon's sound.

Make no mistake, 2005 belongs to them.