I too dislike stoner music. Yet I love Mastodon. I think Mastodon has much more going on musically than any of the stoner bands I have heard.

I don't smoke weed or eat shrooms but I love many stoner bands for whatever reason. Your above statement here is definitely true. Mastodon has one foot in stoner land and the other foot in prog. Their music is more intricate than average everything-fuzzier-than-everything-else bands. They don't groove as hard, but I don't think that's Mast's goal.