Mastodon

When rawk phemons Mastodon decided to write an album based on Moby Dick, the move was more than a little pretentious, and it definitely should have been a big, bloated flop. Instead, Leviathan is the hard-rock triumph of the year, launching the band from big-indie label Relapse to major-league Warner Bros. In the future, people won't talk about Mastodon like it's Black Sabbath -- they'll talk about Black Sabbath like it's Mastodon. See it in a little club while you can.