Mastodon Albums (4)
What The Critics Say
First off, a warning: the best way to encounter Mastodon's Crack the Skye for the first time is with headphones. Reported to be a mystical -- if crunchy -- concept record about Tsarist Russia, this is actually the most involved set of tracks, both in terms of music and production, the band has ever recorded. "Ambitious" is a word that regularly greets Mastodon -- after all, they did an entire album based on Moby Dick -- but until now, that adjective may have been an understatement. There is so much going on in these seven tracks that it's difficult to get it all in a listen or two (one of the reasons that close encounters of the headphone kind are recommended). It may seem strange that the band worked with Bruce Springsteen producer Brendan O'Brien this time out, but it turns out to be a boon for both parties: for the band because O'Brien is obsessive about sounds, textures, and finding spaces in just the right places; for O'Brien because in his work with the Boss he's all but forgotten what the sounds of big roaring electric guitars and overdriven thudding drums can sound like. The guitar arrangements on tracks like "Divinations" and "The Czar," while wildly different from one another, are the most intricate, melodically complex things the band has ever recorded. There are also more subtle moments such as the menacing, brooding, and ultimately downer cuts such as "The Last Baron," where tempos are slowed and keyboards enter the fray and stretch the time, adding a much more multidimensional sense of atmosphere and texture. Still, Crack the Skye rocks, and hard! Its shifting tempos and key structures are far more meaty and forceful than most prog metal, and menace and cosmological speculation exist in equal measure, providing for a spot-on sense of balance. Some of the hardcore death metal conservatives may have trouble with this set, but the album wasn't recorded for them -- or anybody else. Crack the Skye is the sound of a band stretching itself to its limits and exploring the depth of its collective musical identity as a series of possibilities rather than as signatures. And yes, that is a good thing. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The two-year long wait is over, and those Mastodon fans encouraged but leery of the slicker production of Leviathan over Remission will be even more bemused, or downright bewildered, by Blood Mountain, the band's first foray into major-label territory since signing with Warner Brothers' Reprise imprint (after all, this was the label conceded to Frank Sinatra as his own when he threatened to leave it). Blood Mountain is everything fans both hoped for and feared. Mastodon has dug even deeper in its foray into prog metal, but without losing an ounce of their power, literacy, or willingness to indulge in hardcore punk, doom, and death metal. Like Leviathan, Blood Mountain is both melodic and downright raging in places. Matt Bayles is in the producer's chair once more and he's encouraged this Georgia quartet -- Bränn Dailor (drums), Brent Hinds (guitar and vocals), Bill Kelliher (guitar and vocals), and Troy Sanders (bass and vocals) -- to take it to the limit. And they have. Blood Mountain indulges and goes deep into the territory of prog metal beats and quests and spiritual revelations that have less to do with Tolkein-ism and more to do with Conan-ism. There are utterly beautiful melodic passages woven into the heaviness that are reminiscent of Thin Lizzy's dual guitar lyricism -- and the band has confessed to digging Phil Lynott and company. The vocals -- with guest spots from Neurosis' Scott Kelly, the Mars Volta's Cedric Bixler-Zavala, and Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme -- are mixed way upfront and the number of sheer stylistic changes is dizzying. No, Mastodon should not lose their street cred over this. For every old fan alienated, a new one will step into the gap and there will be throngs of new ones, more than likely. Why? Simply because this band does the technical thing as well or better than Meshuggah without sacrificing a bit of the black blood which courses through their veins toward their dark thrash metal hearts. The set opens with the completely in-the-red thrashcore metal of "The Wolf Is Loose," complete with a chanted chorus. As the guitars twin and scream, bass and drums chop away at convention. Tempo changes, from fast to faster to a refrain that gives the listener time to shout along. The doubled leads and repetition in the verse are countered by the swelling, pulsating thud from the drum kit. Lyrically, it appears that Mastodon is trying to create a new mythological present. But the bridge goes into the netherworld with actual sung vocals and angular, elliptical phrases that defy elucidation. The echoey sound effects on the drums at the opening of "Crystal Skull" quickly give way to a plodding power metal riff. "Sleeping Giant" comes out of the gate, slowly, dreamily, seductively, there are digital delays on the guitars that gather tension as they (relatively) whisper by, and create an ambience that crosses early Black Sabbath and Opeth. It's the vocals that are most remarkable, however, sung cleanly to a slow tempo, each word is distinct and the effect is nearly hypnotic as the strange, self-created cultic myth is further woven into a web of dislocation, epic ambivalence, mystery, and power. Prog metal is made plain on "Capillarian Quest," where intricate patterns and bludgeoning guitar riffs vie for dominance but are authoritatively held in Mastodon's deafening balance. "Circle Cysquatch," with its bloodcurdling extreme thrash and burn, tips it toward a virtual creation idea born of pagan rites, blood sacrifice, the spirits of extinct species, and the hollow ring of organized religion, all given their freedom here to drift back to prehistory and the days of fire and rage in the rough and tumble founding of "civilization." On it goes. Mastodon seeks no easy answers but poses dozens of questions about origin, and "culture." Forget "thinking man's metal," this is metal, period, and the guys that make it think. The music, as varied and tumultuous and, in places utterly beautiful as it is, place the band beyond the pale -- check the intro to "Bladecatcher" before it falls apart into pure chaos and cacophony where lyrics and themes are barely articulated in the hammering thunder of apocalyptic noise. Sound effects that perhaps are the voices of the spirits themselves make themselves heard in the din -- but indecipherably. "Colony of Birchmen" and "Hunters of the Sky" are both prototypically metal and act as the album's hinge pieces, where Mastodon completes its achievement and establish a new heavy metal. "This Mortal Soul," with its elongated beginning and utter lyricism may alienate those who live for heaviness alone, but it will attract those who can see outside the genre's subgenres. The set closes with "Pendulous Skin," a track that amounts to a densely populated power ballad with gorgeous guitar soloing, and a major/minor key chord progression (instead of riffs and a Hammond B-3) played by Bayles followed by a long silence, where at the very end, a "fan" letter is read and responded to. What does it add up to? Something old and something new, a heavy metal that's utterly gargantuan to wrestle with because it actually moves the style into brand new territory, an unfamiliar terrain which will accord it much name calling and crying of "sellout" by the unwashed masses who are more conservative about their steely brand of "folk music" than the Newport crowd was about Dylan going electric. Yet, for those daring enough to take this in, there are true bloody treasures to behold and receive. If Leviathan was a masterpiece, then this is too -- only more so. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
When Mastodon first reared its bucktoothed head in 2001 with the Lifesblood EP, the scriveners of metal took note: here was something promising. With 2002's Remission, the promise was kept; it was a debut that puzzled and excited listeners with an amalgam of styles: hardcore punk's intensity and angular chops; death metal's squealing, complex guitars; a heaviness usually the province of sludge and doom metal; and drumming that risked its integrity and ventured into the territory of wank by courting progressive rock and jazz. (Has anyone other than Magma's Christian Vander dared to marry percussion this complex to metal this extreme?) Other bands have flirted with this territory, most notably Dillinger Escape Plan, but their attack always had one foot firmly planted in punk's messy metalcore backyard. Mastodon, however, are leveraging with all hooves staked in the murky underworld swamp of extreme metal. We are now out of Remission and into 2004's highly anticipated follow-up, Leviathan, which again puzzles and will surely alienate one old fan for every two new admirers it gathers in its net. The naysayers will note that too many concessions were made on Leviathan in order to gain a wider audience, that the production is too polished and the vocals too melodic, and they are right. On Remission there was a claustrophobic paranoia, a suffocating heaviness like an elephant's heel pressing on someone's chest; its vocals were the raw hardcore screams of an anarchist drill sergeant. Leviathan digs out of the boot camp stampede and seeks out even heavier environs, going where few bands have gone before, straight down into the ocean. However, the studio polish of producer Matt Bayles that will be agonized by underground purists turns out to be just surface glare. Lurking beneath is an expansiveness more massive than anything found on the shores. The sound on Leviathan seems bottomless and infinite in the best possible way: it's not a dip in the pool; it's a headlong cliff dive into deep waters. There are remarkable no-they-didn't, yes-they-did changes littering Leviathan like chum in shark territory. "Megalodon" moves from angular post-hardcore to chugging boogie thrash with deceptive ease, turning from one to the other with a Southern rawk guitar lick sure to have Duane Allman raise a bony hand in deathly devil-horned approval. It's not just that the sound is now "oceanic," either; metal has always had a tendency to rehash the same dark themes and few bands have the wherewithal to attempt to broaden that vision. Leviathan may not be an out and out concept album, but it's awfully close and thank god they didn't choose anything as cheesy as a blind kid playing pinball. Instead, Mastodon's chosen guide is Moby Dick, and a good portion of the lyrical themes on songs like "Blood and Thunder," "I Am Ahab," "Aqua Dementia," and "Seabeast" are based on Herman Melville's dystopian waters. It's a good fit with the music, too. Filtered through Melville's spyglass, the watery tales and creatures of Leviathan are even more paranoid and intense than the more terrestrial Remission. Those who choose to follow Mastodon into the sea will surely agree. ~ Wade Kergan, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The Atlanta-based foursome play a very aggressive stoner rock hybrid that at times reminds of the non-death metal excursions by Entombed, but with a complex slant that nears prog rock proportions. The jazzy drumming and clean guitar that go on for most of "Ol'e Nessie" is a Southern-sounding sprawl that could be the Allmans if the brothers bludgeoned with the "Whipping Post" instead of just tying folks up to it. Even though their homeland's influence is more subtle the rest of the way, it's still there if you look beneath the Sab-Stooge-Motörhead Gristle, and that, along with the technical ecstasy, helps make Mastodon stand out amongst a ton of other post-Man's Ruin Stonehenge rockers. ~ Brian O'Neill, All Music Guide
