The Mosh Pit 12.04.09: Mastodon – Crack The Skye

Posted by Dan Haggerty on 12.04.2009

This week 411’s Dan Haggerty confesses to being in the Mastodon haters club, and how the band’s new album changed his mind. It’s zeros to heroes as the band raises the bar to Crack the Skye. Click the link for the full story!

Mastodon: A Tale Of Two Music Fans




As a writer of music, and more importantly metal, I have spent a good deal of time taking to task various bands or forms for which I particularly don't care. It's natural, as a music fan who loves the art form enough to dedicate a weekly column on the subject you're going to be passionate and opinionated. Further, you, yes you, the person reading this are likely to be just as opinionated. First, you like music. Second, you like music enough to click on a column and read about it.

I'm not justifying the overall attitude, just explaining it. We all do it in all of our interest, even if we admit it or not.

Normally I try to be judicious enough to be neutral, or at least throw a few courtesies the way of something when I don't like it. Other times I just cut loose and rant. Sure, it's not the most endearing form of communication but to those that get their blood pressure ratcheted up, I'm sure they at minimum can understand what a good rant does on a day when you just need to let it all hang out. This would be the same phenomenon that makes Slayer good music to listen to when you drive home after a bad day at work.

I like to think that I have *overall* been fairly balanced. Sure, I rip into McMetal, trash things like Dragonforce, Limp Bizkit, and glam metal. But truth be told I still own several Dragonforce CD's (Valley of the Damned is actually a fun power metal album once in a while) and I own plenty of hair and glam metal albums despite the fact I try and blame them on the wife. I truly believe there is good music everywhere if you take the time.

Well, except Limp Bizkit. They're still a pile of steaming Durst.

Something I have frequently ripped into is metalcore and what is the modern extension of metalcore in the ridiculously christened New Wave Of American Heavy Metal (NWOAHM). I do enjoy some Lamb of God and the blue-collar honesty of Machine Head, but overall I've been pretty down on the form. One band that I have been a huge critic of, however, is Mastodon. And by critic, I mean I've ripped the band brutally at times.

Until several months ago...

This is a tale of a metal elitist, what he enjoys and doesn't, and more importantly a lesson in remembering to practice what you preach. Truth be told it's a tale of humble pie.


Arts And Croissants My Ass

Oh man, the first time I heard of Mastodon, I wrote them off as another part of the metalcore scene that was punching out nondescript lame riffs over and over again. In my opinion (then) It was easy American corporate hack that was obviously designed to open for nu-metal acts playing for dwindling arena crowds. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't even give the band a chance but when I heard Leviathon the sound was atypical hate at first sound. I just brushed it off as the usual garbage I had head before.

Sadly, I was a little over things at the time. Not too active minded in retrospect, more appropriately burned out on the whole scene and taking a break from the usual obsessive music binge and purging. This one turned out to be a minor version of the long break I took in the 90's during the height of groove and nu-metal. Those were dark days for this classic rock and old metal punter.

Anyway, I blew the band off. I've heard some of the material since and realized I missed a few things and improperly painted the band by not giving it a fair chance, but the truth is it wouldn't have changed my opinion of the actual sound much. The only real difference would have been picking out the future potential of the band if I was behaving like a good critic.

Whatever the true definition of a "good critic" is!

But the real issue came about with the release of Blood Mountain. I was back to my usual music junkie ways and a friend from work was just hyped over the band. The guy would come in and love to talk metal with me being the other resident metalhead. So I was his source for music talk and he loved to have someone to discuss the virtues of things like Ozzfest, Black Label Society, Trivium, Otep, and whatnot.

Sigh.

But he meant well and it was good fun, plus both of us at least discovered a few bands through the process. It wasn't long before he bounced in with Mastodon and Blood Mountain. He even made me a copy. It was with a cringe but an honest and open attempt I gave that album a few spins. Reviews on line where positive, and they seemed to be the "it" new band outside of the Grammy's discovering Lamb of God.

I listened to that album. I didn't like it.

Everyone else seemed to like it. What was I missing here?

So I listened to that album more. At that point, I really didn't like it.

I put it down for a few weeks, which is a trick I do with an album in case it's a mood issue. When I went back a month later I opened the mind and tried to critique it for a site I was submitting material for.

That was the day I discovered I hated Mastodon. Only, now it wasn't just a blind old metal dude being a prick and blowing off a new form. I listened to that album and the faults opened up like bad porn in Sunday School. Or is it a Sunday sermon going of in bad porn. Hell, you get the idea.

But man, I was horrified. If you like that album, you might just want to skip to the next section.

WHAT in the hell was this. It was metalcore trying to be some derelict and metallic art and croissant crap. It was a bastardized groove take on postmodern jazz or some shit. It was like the band took the formula then just blender it into random chaos. The hardcore and groove writing seemed to percolate and hide under bizarre tempo patterns and randomn structures. It made it interesting, but still didn't hide the lifelessness of the tone or the one-dimensional riffs buried behind a lot of seemingly pointless grandstanding. The band just shot the crap willy-nilly all over the place as some form of art-noir idea chaos.

The image I got was that I was hearing two different songs at once, like I was back in my old 76 Dodge with the dial radio that drifted between two stations so I was picking up two different songs at once.

Those were good times.

Anyway, it was like the band had a core lead wrapped around a random rhythm section that was playing something completely unrelated. Two different structures superimposed at once. I'm sure the band had a real vision going into the album, and that the drummers fills on meth playing style real fit some progressive vision of new forms, but man it just vomited out of the speakers and I couldn't take it. I promptly labeled it WTF-core and deleted it from the computer.

And I moved on.


Elitists Gone Wild

The album would go on to hit a number of peoples and magazines top list for the year. That didn't phase me much, as anyone who reads my yearly list or this sites lists can tell you I don't exactly see eye-to-eye with the mainstream anyway. Hell, I don't see eye-to-eye with a number of top metal-zines either. So as far as I was concerned, the fact that Mastodon was so popular was just more proof that society wouldn't know good metal if a block of Damascus steel fell on them.

I was a pretty vocal critic at the point. If you would go online to forums or talked to me in person, I would have been one of those people you hated due to the endless supply of flames ready to burn the band. As far as I was concerned this band was the next generation of mall wonders to ignore and avoid. I even point blank told that to people and recommended other bands they should listen to instead.

I started here after the album had been out and really didn't have a chance or the ware withal to get mixed up on it here on 411. In fact I largely forgot about the band and the hate until this year when it came time for the band to release a new album.

And the hype started. And people got excited. And metal news sources started to do their thing and punch out stories obsessing over little details leading up to the release.

And I remembered how much I despised these "yokels". Man, it all came back and I was ready to go to war here in this column.

The album came out finally and of course I ignored it. I new I would have to check it out, if for no other reason than to properly bash the unholy fuck out of it as part of my duties here. Or maybe at least add a "why not" section to the year end Top 10 feature I do. Reviews started to drift in and people where praising the hell out of it.

Of course they were! They loved the last one. The terms artsy, progressive, and creative got bounced around and it immediately painted a shitty image in my mind.

Of course it was! Their last album was that too!

"Great… Just fucking great…" I told myself. This band was the new white meat and I was stuck going against the tide and making a scene. Well, at least it would make for some great comments from readers when they would go open season on me.

I really didn't want to do it but in this position I knew I needed to have heard it to at least once to be objective.

Truth is I was reloading the flamethrower.

So I grabbed a chair and ponied up to the bar for a listen to this thing.


Crack Your Perception

Of course I wasn't going to put down my money on an album that I KNEW I was going to hate. But I don't use the torrent sites or get my music illegally either, so I ended up going to the band's Myspace page to listen to it. I popped the page up, let it go, and started to work on another project.

Hmmm… Artsy intro. Yea, how pretentious. Obviously, the band sniffed their fan's hype and was going all out here. Yea, this wasn't even metal. More rock like, a little Seattle… A little psychedelic tossed in.

Well, I had to give the band credit for that. No one was visiting the rock/psychedelic vibe. See, there, I could say something nice to maintain an ounce of critical bias. And sure enough, the more metallic "Oblivion" captured the bands more traditional leanings, but I had to admit those riffs where dressed in some interesting rock overall. No big deal…

I drifted off to the project I was working on.

A little later, I realized there was a pretty cool bridge then interlude going on. Actually, it sounded really cool. It knocked me out of the project, so I put up the web page again and clicked the track back a little.

Hmm… OK, this was interesting. A track called "The Czar". Long winding Floyd like tune. It was a tale through musical perception – Something people don't really try to pull off as much these days. Very cool.

And from there I let the other tracks continue and I finished the project. My finally conclusion was that the album was better focused and more interesting at points, but the rest was overall bland and fit for background music.

Of course it was; that was how I listened to it...

BUT that damn song kept playing earworm in my mind. "The Czar" was just a cool track. Then a few other riffs and melodies popped in my head as well but I didn't really admit it.

Next week, a friend and I were off to the music store for a typical Friday visit. It was time load up new music baby! Time for some death metal, maybe a little classic doom; I think Wolves In The Throne Room had come out too. Oh yea – The good stuff.

And there was Mastodon's new album sitting there.

Hmmm… That song was stuck in my head. "Alright" I said, "I'll give this a better listen". If all fails I'll rip that Czar track.

So back home that evening it was me, some headphones, my good friend Grey Goose, and Crack The Skye. This time I found "Oblivion" to be a much more enjoyable listen when I actually bothered to do just that - Listen to it. Since "The Czar" had been running through my mind and was a more rock oriented song with classical 70's flourishes I went in this time thinking rock, and as a beefed alternative rock song this one hit home. "Divinations" was not bad either. I did like the flow from those two into "Quintessence", which is just a heavy rocker that spirals with flairs of the old band but packed with a renewed vigor and purpose. It jolts forward out of control but now the writing and performance is in complete control. In other words, it works.

And that is a key here – this album isn't a metal album, and Mastodon went by leaps and bounds forward to become a great band for it. The drummer wasn't just blowing his wad unintelligibly, but with real stated purpose and I'll be damned, he's great. That allowed a full rhythm section to support what is unquestionably Brent and Bill's best guitar performance to date. The leads and solos are flowing and great. They slide with purpose and duel synergy. Now that they are rocking out versus trying to be bRuTaL they've found their groove. Considering it was their groove leanings that killed it for me before that is a rather funny analogy actually, but really there is a big difference between groove metal and rock that has leads which groove. The former is repetitive and rolls the dice on the listener thinking it's catchy enough to last five minutes while the later tries to be catchy through rock rhythms and change ups.

This album likely peeved a few fans of the old music since it is way off base from the early stuff. This is melodic, more alternative and progressive with that aforementioned psychedelic layering, the conceptual ideas become very atmospheric now that the band isn't trying to throw a wall of sound at you (not a bad thing if you can pull it off, but the frozen north end of Norway this band is not), and frankly just a different band. I mean, they're the same band, you can hear the style and ideas, as well as the layered drive, but as each album has evolved this one went out the door into left field, over the wall, down the street, and turned into a coffee shop for a couple of tokes on a blunt.

And frankly that is a cool thing. It works. "The Czar" is in my opinion the masterpiece of the album and it reminds me of the great conceptual rockers from the golden age of prog, but doesn't sound that old as it's the wash of the ideas painted over that alternative frame. "The Baron" is the other massive epic and I was really starting to wonder if Peter Gabriel has a kid we don't know about.

The concept is a bit over blown however, one too many ideas that comes off like that coffee house was on a corner in Amsterdam versus Seattle, but hey that is the story and not the music. The music flows WONDERFULLY from track to track naturally as a progression. I find myself enjoying this album more as it goes through the tracks, the upbeat beginning pounders being good but the home stretch delivering the goods. I start out listening to the music and by the end I'm lost in the music.

Even with the title track bringing the heavy back near the end, the song is still a rocker that flourishes with ideas and melds from "Ghost of Karelia" into the massive epilogue that is "The Last Baron". The last track shares a classic vibe with "Quintessence" but the Baron flares back and forth. The problem with prog bands, especially back in the day when the style hit critical mass, is that they try to go over the top in the final track to cap what is essentially an hour-long song. Mastodon avoids that pitfall like the best with a track that goes through dynamics to bring a compositional ending that packs drama into the rock.


What The Hell Just Happened

That is what I felt. What in the hell just happened? I went from public hater to a big fan in one evening. Sure, I can still say I don't like the other albums, but for me everything came together here. It's still metallic, but nowhere near the sound of the other albums. The rock, alternative, 70's prog, psyche, and rich interwoven flow of the tracks the album won me over. This is a good rock album that is modern but pays tribute to great ideas from the genres rich history. Or better built, it builds on great ideas with onnovative thinking and pushes music itself forward.

This is just a great album.

Hi. I'm Dan Haggerty. I'm a metal elitist that listens to music that most people never heard of, the kind of metal that melts ears, and the toughest and most obscure sounds to rip necks off for the last 40 years. The harder the better.

I'm also a Mastodon fan and love Crack The Skye. Let the flaming begin; only now I'm on the other side for once.

Good times.