Hello there fellow Otaku & Metalheads!
We’ve certain had a good month so far, as We’ve taken a look at some Soul Metal. Now, it’s my annual tradition of taking a look at a band’s discography for my friend Alex’s birthday, and what a group I have chosen this year! Hailing from Atlanta, George, this quartet of Prog & Sludge Metal maters have crafted some of the wildest and weirdest records in all of metal. It took me a very long time to become a convert, but once I did, I have never once considered leaving the faithful! However, there’s 2 sides to this group, so I’ve decided to split this overview into two separate posts, as I feel that it covers the career of these guys more clearly. In any case, grab the nearly blunt you can find, get familiar with Herman Melville, and enjoy part one of my look at Mastodon. Let’s begin!
Remission (2002)
Our story begins on the 13th of January, 2000. Drummer Brann Dailor and guitarist Bill Kelliher moved to Atlanta, Georgia from Victor, New York, and met future bassist/singer Troy Sanders and guitarist/singer Brent Hinds at a High on Fire show. All four of them discovered that they liked sludgy bands like Melvins & Neurosis, legends like Iron Maiden, and hard rockers like Thin Lizzy. Not long after this, they all realized that something was there, and decided to form Mastodon.
The band recorded a demo in 2000, which featured Eric Saner on vocals, but he would leave after just a few months due to personal reasons. After putting out a four-song demo and a 7-inch picture disc through Reptilian Records, they would get signed onto Relapse Records in 2001, with the first thing that was released is their Lifeblood EP, and on the 28th of May, 2002, their first full album Remission was put out into the world for all to listen to. Remission is particularly significant to Brann Dailor, as it helped him cope with his sister’s death, and had this to say in a 2004 interview with the online magazine Lollipop:
“My sister committed suicide when I was 15 (she was 14)...I was never able to put that stuff anywhere. All that pain I was carrying inside. The pain of losing her had always been there. With Today Is the Day, there was a lot of anger involved. After that, I didn't want to be angry. When I start playing in Mastodon and moved to Atlanta, there was a big personal healing. Mastodon had a lot to do with that. That's one of the main reasons that the album is titled Remission. Remission means forgiveness and healing. Mastodon helped me do that: Forgive a lot of things that happened in my life.”
The reception for Remission was overwhelmingly positive upon it’s release. Brian O'Neill from Allmusic said that the record had a "technical ecstasy" to it, alongside a "a complex slant that nears prog rock proportions". Bryan Haywood of Pitchfork Media spoke highly of the record’s production, in addition to Brann Dailor being the stand-out musician. He stated:
“They drop in just enough [mathematics] to keep the arrangements flavorful, but not so much as to overload the vintage guitar riffs with Dream Theater-like complexity. And then they counterbalance it with some nice, old-fashioned, Sabbath-style metal attitude.”
He further commented:
“The complete package sounds timeless, but in that unbelievable way that you've never heard before.”
Best Track? Mother Puncher! The concluding track of Remission, it comes at you with the weight of a thousand tons of steel, and it’s unrelenting. Occupying a middle ground in terms of pacing, the band sure as hell knows what they’re doing. Brann Dailor is hammering on the drums like there’s no tomorrow, Bill Kelliher owns the rhythm guitar, and both Troy Sanders & Brent Hinds on bass & lead guitar respectfully (Not to mention that they kill it on vocals as well). The track is a great way to end a starting record, and isn’t a tune to skip!
Mother Puncher
Worst Track? Honestly, I can’t think of one! Remission comes out swinging, and hits perfectly every single time it plays. If there’s anything that I would nitpick, I’d say that nearly 20 years after it’s release it does show it’s age. Even on the reissue from 2014 you can still tell it’s age, but it’s not as obvious.
Remission. A brutal start to a storied career, and almost 20 years later this record is still talked about in high regard. If you like your Prog heavier than normal, and a bit more on the odd side, then this release is what you want. Next album!
Leviathan (2004)
Released on the 31st of August, 2004, Leviathan had a lot to live up to. Their prior record, Remission, came out of the gate rip roaring hot, and there was probably a lot of pressure on the band to crank out something just as good if not better. Fortunately, they most easily crafted not only a great record, but one of the best concept albums of the 2000s. Loosely inspired by the classic Herman Melville novel Moby Dick, the whole release feels like the tale of some creature from the deep sea. A creature that has existed for an incredibly long time, and one that doesn’t like the surface world all that much.
Much like it’s predecessor, Leviathan was given high praise upon it’s release. Avi Pitchon of Terrorizer magazine said that the record “rampages through in a shining epic flow, the 'crazy' parts never separate from the classic metal parts”. Pitchform Media placed it at no. 126 on their “Top 200 Albums Of The 2000s” list, and MetalSucks made a list of the "21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century So Far" based on the opinions of various musicians, managers, publicists, label representatives and writers, & Leviathan was number one on that list.
Best Track? I gotta give this title to Seabeast! Over a decade before I became the fan that I am now, this accidental discovery planted a seed within my mind that would ultimately bloom in 2017. Like Mother Puncher, this track occupies a middle ground when it comes to it’s pacing, but it is sped up a little when compared to the previously mentioned tune. From the instrumentation, to the vocal work, and to the weird effects added in, it makes the whole thing come across as more Lovecraftian rather than Moby Dick. The odd & absurd music video adds more to this Lovecraft vibe, so check it out!
Seabeast
Worst Track? Like Remission, Leviathan doesn’t have a single bad track on the record. The band kept the quality from their previous outing, and unlike that release, the recording on this CD seems to have improved quite a bit. There’s still a little roughness here & there, but it’s a bit harder to pinpoint. Pretty impressive if you ask me!
Leviathan. Taking the best parts of Remission, and putting those parts to the grindstone, Mastodon show that they can improve upon prior material in addition to making something some. If you liked their previous release but with a bit more polish, then 2004's Leviathan is for you. Next album!
Blood Mountain (2006)
From a trippy take on Moby Dick, we have Blood Mountain. Released on the 12th of September 2006 in both the UK and United States (It was out on Reprise Records in the US), the record further continues the band’s exploration of concept albums. In the case of this 3rd release, bassist Troy Sanders had this to say:
“It's about climbing up a mountain and the different things that can happen to you when you're stranded on a mountain, in the woods, and you're lost. You're starving, hallucinating, running into strange creatures. You're being hunted. It's about that whole struggle.”
Sanders also stated that Blood Mountain was “sonically the best album we have done”, as there was a greater emphasis on cleaner & more melodic vocals, as less of the harsher singing on their earliest material. Reception for Blood Mountain was as high as Leviathan was. Total Guitar Magazine voted it the no. 1 album of 2006, and fellow magazines Metal Hammer and Kerrang! thought it was just as good as Leviathan was, if not better. Blood Mountain would actually be voted the best album of 2006 in MH’s end-of year polls, as well as Total Guitar top 50 albums of 2006 in their magazine.
Best Track? Sleeping Giant is a sleeper hit of a tune, and that’s not a joke on it’s name! There’s a bit of instrumental in the beginning, and it just builds & builds over time, until finally the band unleash the full force of the song in question. They really do make it feel like the song is a genuine sleeping giant, and he wakes up to cause all kinds of havok as the band plays on. It’s a pretty impressive & epic sounding song, as they make the whole thing feel as epic as possible. This is definitely a song that you shouldn’t skip!
Sleeping Giant
Worst Track? Yet again, I can’t think of a single bad song on here. Mastodon really are that good (Outside of one) at crafting some incredible albums, and Blood Mountain is perfection from top to bottom. From the instrumentation, to the vocal work, to the various weird sound effects, and finally to the recording & production, everything is fantastic! Even the length of time it runs is great, as it doesn’t quite feel as long as their prior 2 releases could feel.
Blood Mountain. Finally stepping out of the roughness of the prior two releases , but still having a bit of that rough artistic attitude behind them. If you felt that Remission or Leviathan needed a little more polish, then you may want to seek this release out. Next album!
Crack The Skye (2008)
And here we are. One of the most iconic & important albums in Mastodon’s entire discography. Crack The Skye. Released on the 24th of March, 2009, Crack The Skye is the ultimate example of a “Bar Raiser” kind of record. As Troy Sanders said in an interview with Stereogum: “Crack the Skye is a departure from everything we've previously recorded in the sense that we kinda strapped on our aeroshells and departed from Earth for a while, and then captained to the ethereal element of the universe and kind of slept on the roof of the world for a while to get a perspective on this record. ... Basically we're exploring the ethereal world. We're dissecting the dark matter that dominates the universe, in a nutshell.”
When he was asked in multiple interviews, Brann Dailor said CTS was a story dealing variously with the art aesthetics of Tsarist Russia, astral travel, out of body experiences and Stephen Hawking's wormhole theories.
“There is a paraplegic and the only way that he can go anywhere is if he astral travels. He goes out of his body, into outer space and a bit like Icarus, he goes too close to the sun, burning off the golden umbilical cord that is attached to his solar plexus. So he is in outer space and he is lost, he gets sucked into a wormhole, he ends up in the spirit realm and he talks to spirits telling them that he is not really dead. So they send him to the Russian cult, they use him in a divination and they find out his problem. They decide they are going to help him. They put his soul inside Rasputin's body. Rasputin goes to usurp the czar and he is murdered. The two souls fly out of Rasputin's body through the crack in the sky(e) and Rasputin is the wise man that is trying to lead the child home to his body because his parents have discovered him by now and think that he is dead. Rasputin needs to get him back into his body before it's too late. But they end up running into the Devil along the way and the Devil tries to steal their souls and bring them down ... there are some obstacles along the way.”
Dailor also said that Crack The Skye was a tribute to his sister, Skye, who tragically took her own life at the age of 14.
“My sister passed away when I was a teenager and it was awful, and there's no better way to pay tribute to a lost loved one than having an opportunity to be in a group with my friends and we make art together. Her name was Skye, so Crack the Skye means a lot of different things. For me personally, it means the moment of being told you lost someone dear to you, [that moment] is enough to crack the sky.”
The initial response to Crack The Skye was pretty positive upon it’s release. Total Guitar's Nick Cracknell gave it a 5 out of 5 rating, describing it as "even more ambitious in scope and sound than 2006's Blood Mountain. Embracing elements of prog and country, but above all classic rock, Hinds and Kelliher literally add new dimensions to the band's ever-expanding sound", Nate Chinen of The New York Times noted the album's "ambitious vision and vivid execution", and New Yorker pop music critic Sasha Frere-Jones listed CTS as one of his favorite albums of 2009 on his personal blog and, in an article for The New Yorker, called Crack the Skye a "deeply entertaining album". He’s not wrong!
Best Track? The Czar is easily the most psychedelic & trippy song of their time in the 2000s, and given the kind of material they put out beforehand, that is saying something! Playing for nearly 11 minutes, Mastodon take you on a colorful trip through the mind of a rule who’s quite mad. Seeing enemies seemingly everywhere, he does everything he can to silence those he believes are out to get him, and the band provide just the right instrumentation & atmosphere to convey the story they’re telling. Simply a masterpiece!
The Czar
Worst Track? Like many albums in some band’s careers, Crack The Skye’s only fault is that it may have set the bar too high for the band to ever grab again. Whether intentionally or not, Mastodon put the bar way above themselves, and I think it would take a long time before they would ever grab it again. That doesn’t mean what’s to come isn’t bad (except for maybe one release), but I suspect looking back that it took the band quite some time to grasp the bar they raised once again.
Crack The Skye. A banger of a concept record, and while the band put the bar up maybe a bit too high, they still show that they are a force to be reckoned with. If you like your concept album more on the darker & trippy side of things, then you’re definitely looking for this!
And thus concludes part one of my look at Mastodon. Much like Prog Metal titan Devin Townsend, this band was proof that the subgenre could be nice & heavy in addition to be totally weird at times. Would they be able to carry over this level of quality to the 2010s & beyond? Find out in a week or so, when we’ll look at part 2 of my overview of the band. See you soon!
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If you’re curious about listening to these albums, click on the links below:
Remission
Leviathan
Blood Mountain
Crack The Skye
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