A couple of weeks ago, I said Lamb of God had the best metal release of the year. Forget that. Mastodon’s Crack the Skye has set a new bar for the renowned metal band.
The members of Mastodon met in 1999 at a concert in Atlanta, Ga. for the band, High on Fire. They discovered their love for similar music and soon came together to create Mastodon. Its sludge metal coupled with progressive instrumentals proved to be a winning combination for the Atlanta quartet. Its first full-length album, Remission, came out in 2002. The band then released Leviathan in 2004, which was a concept album based on Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The album received rave reviews from the heavy metal community. Mastodon’s 2006 follow-up, Blood Mountain, garnered even more critical and commercial success.
The band is anything but mainstream. Although much of its sound involves low-end, mud-like growls, there are plenty of beautiful, flowing passages that are reminiscent of King Crimson and Thin Lizzy. If none of these ring a bell for you, Mastodon, in a sense, sounds like a tuned-down, more concentrated, heavy-as-lead version of The Mars Volta.
With Crack the Skye, Mastodon just keeps getting better. Like previous efforts, Crack the Skye is not just a collection of songs. The album acts as a tribute to drummer Brann Dailor’s sister, Skye, who committed suicide at age 14. Crack the Skye is a journey, specifically the journey of a paraplegic whose only mode of transportation is astral travels. Not trippy enough for you? Rasputin gets involved somehow.
The opening track, “Oblivion,” gazes into the heavens as drummer Brann Dailor sings, “I flew beyond the sun before it was time / burning all the gold that held me inside my shell.” The protagonist opens the album by telling his story. His encounter with Rasputin and Czarist Russia is then described on a nearly 11-minute epic called “The Czar.”
Crack the Skye shows a side of Mastodon that the world has never seen before. The songs on Crack the Skye are more focused than previous works. Mastodon may drift into uncharted territory, but it tells a consistently interesting story.
If the members of Mastodon are nothing else, they are road warriors. The band is continuously on tour, and it delivers live. For Crack the Skye, Mastodon’s tour schedule includes stops at Coachella, the 9:30 Club, and Knebworth House in the United Kingdom. For many of these shows, Mastodon will open for the reigning gods of thunder, Metallica. No word yet about whether Mastodon will open for Metallica’s stop in Charlottesville Oct. 17, though.
With Crack the Skye, Mastodon has created a symphony of sludge that will continue to impress throughout the year and years to come.
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