Mastodon C/D ?

Maybe Mastodon will help crusty rock critic types to give other 'creative' metal bands a chance - Lamb of God, people!!!!

That's true that movie portrayals of computers are almost always ludicrously inaccurate (at least they always used to be before almost everyone had internet access). I was watching Weird Science on Comedy Central today and thinking the same thing.

I have been informed that a copy of the new Mastodon is on its way to me. Can't wait.

They blew it. No sludge, no doom, no Crusher/Destroyer, no incredible listen-to-the-drummer-play-fills-during-the-entire-fucking-album. Just a lot of cheap Maiden and Slayer imitations.

This is like Cave In following up Jupiter with Antenna.

I'm so bummed right now.

I really wanna hear this.

Mastadon LIVE trumps Mastadon recorded, FWIW.

wait, how could they stop this? :(

(most of this could change by the time the record comes out - who knows if this is the final mix?)

Wait does that sound too pissy?

I think it's interesting how up-front the vox are compared to the other two records - dude seems to be cultivating a Phil-Anselmo-in-Superjoint-guise thing, which is welcome as far as I'm concerned

I wanna see 'em live

Idolator linked to this story about Brent Hinds being assaulted and hospitalized -- what the fuck?

Sounds as though he has a really bad injury. Hope it's not as serious as it sounds.

:(

WTF? Horrible news.

That's fucked up.

Saw them this summer. March Of The Fire Ants works even better when they play the main riff with their guitars behind their heads.

Too bad about Brent.. Hope everything works out.

Interesting article in the new RS titled "Head Injury Inspires New Melodic Mastodon Album: With Brendan O'Brien on board, the headbangers craft "classic rock" sound"

Brent Hinds was attacked and cracked his head open during a drunken altercation following the MTV VMAs. He suffered brain hemorrhaging, then was plagued by vertigo for eight months. He said he wrote the music for the next album during that time with his acoustic guitar and some marijuana. "I wanted a more melodic, easy-listening situation, and definitely came from having head trauma."

If that isn't a Spinal Tap worthy quote, I don't know what is!

Brann Dailor confirms they want to make a broader, "classic-rock-sounding record." They met their producer backstage at a Bruce Springsteen concert of all places.

The article mentions three of the album's seven songs -- "Quintessence" with spacey synthesizers and vocal harmonies, "Divinations" that comes on like Master Of Puppets era Metallica but with soaring vocals and a bright chorus, and "Oblivion," a sinister, multitempo prog-metal epic with a bluesy guitar solo.

It will continue the elements theme, exploring air, ghosts and the ethereal world. The group has talked about eventually combining the releases into a box set called The Elements, heh.

So, lots of openings there to talk about shark-jumping and whatnot. However, I'm just glad they won't be repeating themselves. Hopefully it'll be great.

He got a kicking the other week there too.

tales from topographic...

He exhibits many hallmarks of being an absolute prick. I'll still look forward to this - even if it's bad I don't think it'll qualify as shark jumping as Blood Mountain was so great it wouldn't really represent a downward curve, if you get me

I thought Blood Mountain was great, So I am looking forward to this. Remission is my favourite but there's no point in trying to remake it when simply it couldn't be as good.

I thought Blood Mountain was terrible, so I expect listening to this will be like actually receiving head trauma.

Did you like Leviathan? I couldn't get my head round people who loved one and hated the other

Yeah I did like Leviathan. It's definitely a difference by degrees but the Blood Mountain riffs are just a little bit worse, the vocals are a lot worse, and the lyrics swing away from awesome shit like chasing a whale to kinda lame shit like made up D&D creatures.

Basically I feel like they've been simplifying the formula a bit with each release, and the LAST thing we need is another '00s band getting its classic rock on.

awesome shit like chasing a whale to kinda lame shit like made up D&D creatures

Haha this is some pretty definitive narcissism of small diffs to be fair. Of your other points I guess it's an 'eye of the beholder' deal but I've not listened to either for a good 18 months so hey

I'm curious to hear what a more "prog" Mastodon sounds like, so I'm going to remain hopefully optimistic for this one. Prick tendencies aside, Mastodon is one of my favorite metal bands going right now.

Not much sympathy for Hinds on this thread. The guy gets his head cracked open, and everyone seems to think he had it coming. Does anyone know who did it and why?

That was a fight with one of System Of A Down IIRC. I read a story a few weeks ago about him putting that guy King Khan in the hospital in which he seemed fairly indefensible

Haha this is some pretty definitive narcissism of small diffs to be fair.

Yeah no doubt. I dunno, "Circle of Cysquatch" and "Colony of Birchmen" sound like Magic cards (I'm pretty sure the second one IS a Magic card). It's like they totally believed that people liked their records for some kind of high-concept narratives when in fact I just appreciated that I knew what he was talking about with "WHITE WHALE HOLY GRAIL"--simple, clear, and direct.

I haven't listened to them recently either (was hoping they were still on the iPod so I could make some points on this thread but no dice). I just feel like Remission and Leviathan had these great twisty riffs that were complicated but totally rocking and Blood Mountain was a less-engaged, more same-y version of that. There are still songs from Remission that have a "holy fuck how did they write that" quality for me, and Leviathan was a little more accessible but still in that vein. Like when there was a 5-second blues riff on Leviathan it was a nice homage and made me smile, but that should definitely NOT be their future direction. When are bands going to stop thinking that effects pedals and multi-part epics are like what you do when you grow up?

I've only seen them live twice, the last time was when they toured with Opeth, but they were incredible both times. I really need to try to catch them again.

also if anyone like me slept on the cold dark place ep... stop sleeping

hard to believe any of those songs didn't make their respective albums

it's going to take a while for me to gather my thoughts on this one but first impression is very positive. This may be their best sounding album, the mix is very clear as opposed to the murk of Emperor of Sand. They seem to be really going for it performance-wise, with a welcome return to higher tempos and wild riffing, as opposed to the kind of lumbering mid-tempo stuff they often get bogged down in.

wow, Pitchfork really hated this, huh? wtf?

ok, after listening to pretty much every mastodon album, the new one sounds even… more impressive? every part of “pain with an anchor” deeply rocks. feeling like “masterpiece” is otm

My current ranking: Leviathan > Crack the Skye > Emperor of Sand > Hushed & Grim > Once More 'Round the Sun > Blood Mountain > The Hunter > Remission

Not a bad ranking at all, but I'd flip it a little:

Leviathan > Crack the Sky > Blood Mountain > Hushed > Emperor > Remission > Hunter > Sun

crack the skye
hushed and grim
blood mountain
leviathan
once more ‘round the sun
remission
emperor of sand
the hunter

Still digging this!

Also excited to hear what Brent cooks up in his new project with Matt Pike, supposedly a single and video due out before the end of the year. Read a thing that said Brent held back some songs from this Mastodon record for the Pike project, but not sure if that's just because they didn't really fit here or what. Not going to link to the article I read since it also includes Brent dropping a homophobic slur while he's trashing other bands they've toured with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFJisKSY2SY

video would've been better if they'd just done the numbers straight without the interviews - but playing at the Georgia Aquarium would be on my Mount Rushmore of unattainable performance venues.

I wrote a long piece about Hushed and Grim and how Covid-19 has killed the album cycle.

Great piece, glad to see some more love for that record. I was really surprised at the muted reaction to one of their best.

they just announced upcoming tour dates, I'm probably going to see them when they get to Austin in August

very nice writing, unperson. I hope this album gets more recognition, it's one of their best.

I found it a slog the one time I listened to it, perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind. There seemed to be barely any variation in mood.

The band just released a full-on 90 minute documentary on the making of their new one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Rgi5C0JbRs

I have not watched it yet so I cannot rep for it but I will probably have it play in the background one day when I am working sometime.

"It’s also facing new competition from established names: Meta has said it’s working on its own decentralized social network, code-named P92, which will reportedly connect to ActivityPub. And Twitter’s co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey is getting ready to unveil Bluesky, a decentralized social media app that will come with a new protocol of its own."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/apr/18/mastodon-users-twitter-elon-musk-social-media

Lol no

lol

no shade on the app, but let's not shit up this beautiful thread with this stuff

I haven't a chord from this group and I apologise (posted this in the ILE thread)

An easy mistake to make.

Revisiting Hushed and Grim for the first time in awhile, it's fucking fantastic. I think it'll stand up as one of the band's best. Doesn't hurt that it ends with an absolutely incredible run - "Gobblers of Dregs", "Eyes of Serpents" and "Gigantium" are all so good.

it's a good one for sure. My only complaint as always is that they should let Brent Hinds sing more. He doesn't have quite as powerful a voice as the other 2 but he sounds cooler. I get burned out on Troy Sanders constant bellowing and Brann Dailor is a bit bland.

Brann barely sang at all on the first bunch of records and now he's all over the newer ones.

agreed, it is fantastic.
out of a random urge, i listened to disc 1 earlier.
absolutely hit the spot.