Sleigh Bells | Treats
Desert City Soundtrack | Perfect Addiction
Wolverine | The Window Purpose
Powerman 5000 | Destroy What You Enjoy

I guess I want to start writing something about these single-artist listening marathons I've been doing over the past few years, but I don't feel like making a separate thread for them. So here we go.

Marathon Listening Project: Mastodon
Part 1 - Lifesblood EP



I've probably only ever listened to Mastodon's debut EP once or twice, and I guess I was under the impression that they had started out slower, sludgier, and more stoner-metal than they actually did. They were pretty intense from the start, actually, leaning closer to classic thrash than recent stoner acts like High on Fire. There are a lot of knotty twists and turns here and really tight playing and technical proficiency on display. Their proggy tendencies are evident already here even they wouldn't really start to overtake their heavier side until much later. This is some of their murkier stuff, with the vocals being fairly indistinct and not mixed particularly high. The one thing present here that didn't make it onto any of their later records is the vocal (movie?) samples that open the songs. The highlight is probably the last track, "Battle at Sea" which is just a furious whirlwind of fast, heavy riffs and ridiculous drumming, and a pretty good teaser of their best moments to come.

Mastodon
Remission

Already from the beginning their first full-length, you can tell that Mastodon has somehow managed to become both tighter and heavier than they were on their previous EP. The vocals are still kind of muddled in death metal territory, but the music has gained a greater focus and precision. On "Where Strides the Behemoth" they hit total pay dirt, opening with pummeling drums and rushing through a thrilling epic that lasts a total of three minutes. They stretch things out more on several tracks, but they never really become dull or tiresome. They keep things moving and changing, and they never seem overly weighty or leaden like so much overly-serious, self-consciously dark metal often can. The appeal of Mastodon's first couple of album, for me, is that they're fun. None of the fancy playing seems ponderous or distracting, but rather it's propulsive and exciting. It's the sort of stuff that makes you want to drive dangerously fast.

Mastodon
Leviathan

This is their masterpiece, I think. We'll see if I like Blood Mountain more than I remember, but I highly doubt it. This is the one where everything just comes together perfectly. The vocals become more distinctive and less death-metal-y, and the riffs are clearer and stronger. It just never lets up. To me this album combines just about all the best aspects of the big classic metal bands: Motörhead, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Metallica, and Slayer. All without the tiresome preoccupation with dark subject matter that permeates most metal. This is simply powerful, fun music.

Mastodon
Blood Mountain

You can tell by the cover that things have changed here and not necessarily for the better. The prog-rock leanings are being brought more to the surface, and Mastodon's heavier side is being subdued, but just a little bit. It's still a pretty heavy album, and really it's a pretty good album in all. The vocals are probably their best, and while it lacks Leviathan's high points and consistent awesomeness, there are plenty of cool moments here. I think it's definitely for the best that they didn't keep doing the same thing over and over, and I really have no problem with the direction they took on this album even if I don't like it quite as much as their earlier stuff. You kind of get the impression that touring with Tool and Mars Volta had rubbed off on them a little, but not too much... yet.

I'll re-listen to leviathan later.

Jim Jones Revue - st
Jerry Lee Lewis - Live @ the Starclub

Mojo Nixon - Bo-Day-Shuns

last one...



Mastodon
Crack the Skye

Here's where it all goes wrong. Just look at that cover. I mean the Blood Mountain cover was bad enough. Anyway, this one ends up being pretty appropriate for the music contained within. It's not quite as tasteless as that design, but they've definitely lost the plot. Everything's perfectly cleaned up and polished, but the real problem is the songs themselves. It isn't just that the scales have now tipped well towards prog, but everything just seems so watered down. "Oblivion" sounds like a proggy imitation of Soundgarden or something. I hate to compare them to nu-metal bands of last decade - since I'm really not that familiar with any of them - but that's the feeling I get from this one. Mastodon still has more complex and more interesting ideas than most metal-type bands out there probably do, but somehow they lost the focus and the dynamics that made their previous albums exciting and fun. Maybe this is the point where they started to take themselves too seriously? Where their far less talented but far more successful contemporaries started to influence them? I don't know, but this album was a pretty big disappointment for me, and I still can't find much to like about it.

exactly.

bitchin', bitchin', bitchin' podcasts.

For Love Not Lisa || Information Superdriveway

Beach Fossils

Nice laid back echoey surf influenced garagey stuff. mostly relaxed mid-tempo, lo-fi thing. Nothing fancy, but, I'm digging it.

Yeah, I put this away after getting it and haven't gone back to it since.

Ratt || Infestation
I Mother Earth || Scenery and Fish
Burden Brothers (ex Toadies) || Buried in You Black heart

Crack the Skye is really great and the best Mastodon album

there goes your credibility.

will you just look at the things you post in these threads

but he's right.

I really dug Crack the Skye because it was polished, and Drinky I think what you're hearing in the nu-metal vein is simply Brendan O'Brien's production. Pretty much the only Mastodon album I can listen to and fully enjoy. I've been exposed to them mainly through my friends whose favorite music is the likes of Isis, Pelican, Mastodon, Neurosis, Tool, et al and I've seen them live 4x now. Mastodon put on a great show but I'm always left wanting them to be heavier. The ultimate metal band in my mind is Slayer, but I also grew up on a steady diet of Metallica





His username is contradiction, ya know?

i don't claim they're the greatest though.

Possibly, but I think it goes beyond polish. I suppose I can see why a lot of people might prefer this - it seems more centered around actual songs (clear melodies, vocal refrains) than any of their previous albums. The problem for me is that they lose pretty much everything I ever liked about them, and the songs themselves just aren't that good. None of their previous stuff has ever stuck in my head like the latter portion of "The Last Baron" has, but I actually find that kind of irritating because I don't like that song that much.

To each his own, naturally.