Album Review: Crack The Skye

The official release date for Mastodon's 4th (technically 5th) full length Crack the Sky is March 24. I was fortunate enough to catch the pre-order going on and got the album last Saturday. I know it's pretty much 4 days later now, but I didn't want to go into this review all willy-nilly. I needed time to take the album in and listen to it a few times before I reacted upon it.

The album is Crack the Skye. Mastodon, who are well known for their themed albums, seemingly have a Russian type of theme to this one. Probably inspired by drummer Brann Dailor's trip to Russia some time before the official writing process took place. Artistically the album packaging is on point with what you'd expect to see, largely in part to the fact that they have been using the same artist (Paul Romano) for all of their releases. This time the packaging is much more of a box set than the standard jewel case. The pre-order package came with a "making of..." DVD that I've yet to watch, but I'm sure it's every bit as good as every other "making of..." DVD, and in the center is an interesting bit of multi-dimensional artwork reminiscent of Tool's 10k days/Laturalus album artwork.


The pre-order package also came with a lithograph of the album artwork. But I think lithograph was just fancy speak for "we had a guy run down to kinkos and get this one picture copied 1000 times to 14"x14" poster board." Either way, it's still hanging on my wall.

So, onto the music. Well unless you haven't been following Mastodon recently you would have already heard Divinations and possibly even Oblivion. The music is tight, and it sounds great which should be a relief to some people who were worried about whether or not the new producer was gonna fuck things up. But what might catch some people off guard (but shouldn't be off putting to anyone) is the new expansive vocal style. It's still gritty, but they took all that experimental clean vocal tid-bits from Blood Mountain and expounded upon them. I'll admit, I was a little unsure at first when I didn't hear any of the usual growls or grunts, and especially when I heard Brann singing from behind the kit on Oblivion. In fact it's not till near the end of the album that you get any growling vocals. But, after a few listens you kinda get used to it, and if it was bothering you before like it was me at first you learn to accept it. So let's go through the tracks.

1. Oblivion: As I mentioned earlier, Brann sings some verses on this one. Yeah, Brann. The drummer. That means the only guy who isn't singing anymore is 2nd guitarist Bill Kelliher. He actually has a pretty decent voice, and is clearly (as if it ever should have been questioned) coordinated enough to handle singing and playing his usual drum parts at the same time. The song is a little on the slower side as far as Mastodon goes. It's along the same line as Seabeast, and Colony of Birchmen. It's sure to get plenty of plays as it's oddly addicting.

2. Divinations: Pretty much the straight rocker on this album. The Blood and Thunder, the Wolf Is Loose, or even the Mother Puncher if you will. Now, on any other album this would have been that one song that stood out and made you think "wow these guys are really progressive. They aren't some one tune metal band." But when taken in with all the other songs it's pretty much just the straight rocker. You get a hint of the old style of singing, but essentially it's pretty much clean. Catchy riff, catchy chorus, and sure to get in your head.

3. Quintessence: This is one of those songs that will take some time and a few spins until it is fully appreciated by some (like me). I mean it's not bad at all, it's just a little different at first. There's some fancy guitar work going on, and it's clear that Brent Hinds has become very proficient at singing and playing intricate parts at the same time (as it has been mentioned by the band members that Brent and Troy would trade singing parts based on song difficulty when their singer first left the band). I'm not a huge fan of the chorus, it's just a call and repeat "Letting Go" between Brent and Troy, but it's still cool. The song is good, but in my opinion not one that will get played as extensively as their other songs.

4. The Czar: I. Usurper II. Escape III. Martyr IV. Spiral:
Like it or loathe it Mastodon have decided to take up valuable track space with this expansive 4 part track that spans just over 10 minutes. Now, if you're like me, you see a ten minute Mastodon song and think back to tracks like Hearts Alive and say FUCK YES! But, I dunno. This song doesn't do it for me as much as Hearts Alive. The 4 parts are clearly segregated as there are marked tempo shifts/melody changes/and different lyrical ideas. It goes from slow and dark with repeating lyrics of "Don't stay, Run Away". And that's not bad at all. The next part is a little weird at first. Brann has since discovered tambourines and puts one to full use in this part. This section kinda has a Funk meets Capillarian Crest sort of feel. Yeah, I know, that sounds horrible. But that's the only way I can explain it. Again it's not a bad part, and most of the guitar riffs kinda have a Remission sort of feel (or simplicity) to them. And this part spans a good 3 minutes or so until the guitars ring out, and here comes another huge tempo change. There's some acoustic guitar and ambient sounds for a bit, and then the distortion kicks back in. The singing in this part sounds like it is largely dominated by Brent, but I'll admit that sometimes even I can't tell whose singing. But, the reason that this part kicks ass is the solo. Very bluesy, very shred-tastic, but dammit Brent that was entirely too short. You'll also notice that the whole song is filled with some organ work by some guy. It adds a nice touch, but it's not too over powering. Now we go into the last part, Spiral, which is essentially a repeat of Usurper. There's some nice backing vocals, some "ooo's" and "aaa's" over the repeating guitar line, and the song fades out. And I know it's gonna take some time for me to fully appreciate this song, but honestly right now I'm kinda wishing they would have replaced this ten minutes with 2-3 songs that sound like Iron Tusk and Circle of Cysquatch, if not just a bad ass 10 minute jam session that Wesley Willis would be proud of, with minimal singing like fucking Hearts Alive! But, instead the band chose a more progressive feel, and do a pretty good job at telling a story (presumably of a czar getting usurped, well yeah).

5. Ghost of Karelia: This song is essentially like Quintessence. It's not bad. Actually I like this song a little less than Quintessence, and by this point if you're not feeling all the clean vocals, you might not like this one as much. It's 5 minutes long but for some reason it feels short. I mean I know I just listened to a ten minute song, but still. One nice thing about it is there is some really good musicianship going on. Some traditional Russian string instruments sprinkled through out, I think there's some organ work too. But damn is there a lot of singing. No real musical break down, or extensive bad ass guitar solos. Just a lot of lyrics. Little bits of tempo shift through out the song, but it keeps reverting back to the slower "this song is deep" speed. Yeah I just made that up, but you'll know what I mean when you hear it. Hell I even think I heard Brann whack a gong in there. The song eventually ends kinda how it started, with some impressive clean vocals, and then it transitions into the next track.

6. Crack The Sky: This song is the title track obviously but it should be retitled to "Only Song with Harsh Vocals". Yep, it's taken this long to hear anything reminiscent of Mastodon's earlier work, and it took Neurosis's Scott Kelly (pictured right) to get it done. I really like this song. It is essentially just a Neurosis song with Brent and Troy singing the chorus, and Brent doing some fancy guitar work. The song is slow, in fact you could say it crawls. There's an eerie xylophone sounding keyboard melody that appears every now and again. The music during the chorus is refreshingly deep, and you can easily make out Brann's double bass pumping away. But Scott Kelly is the only one doing any grunting on this track. The chorus and all other Mastodon parts are clean, but actually go really well with this song. I think it's the balance of clean and grimy vocal styles that does it for me. Kinda like how it did on Blood Mountain.

7. The Last Baron: And sadly the last track. That's right. Last track. 7 tracks. That's all you get. To be fair though this track is 13 minutes long. Mastodon must have felt that no one was taking them seriously as a progressive metal band, so they busted out the jams with this long one. It's not bad, but the oft repeated lyric of "I guess they'd say we could set this world ablaze" just feels awkward and I think it's cause I'm subconsciously connecting it with Killswitch Engage's song World Ablaze and that's just leaving a weird taste in my mouth. Well this song is pretty damn good. Many tempo changes again, some really good guitar work. About midway through the song Mastodon has a YYZ moment ala Rush, and then they just go back to rocking. Just like in The Czar there's just a little too much singing. They really must have wanted to get the theme across with all the singing when they were writing this album. But they still manage to get in some good instrumental parts. The song also features some chorus style background "Ooo, Ooo, Ooo's" that, from the credits, were seemingly more keyboard work. That or the guys put on some Bee Gees Jeans to pull off some incredibly high pitches. Also in this song is another tambourine and porno scratch guitar breakdown. Maybe it's just me but the tambourine seems a little out of place with a Mastodon song with the amount it's being used.

So to sum it all up, if my ramblings about each track seemed negative than let me just say I'm really happy I bought this album, and I'm also very psyched to hear all these songs when I see Mastodon play in May in Philly. I gotta rate this album out of ten stars so I can be accurate.

Album artwork/packaging: 7/10. Cool artwork, but I didn't really get how the tunnel picture was that great. Maybe I have to take up smoking weed, I dunno.

Music: 7/10. At least for now. Who knows. I might really learn to love this album. I know it took some time for me to like Leviathan, and even Blood Mountain at first because Mastodon IS a progressive metal band. They're constantly pushing the boundaries of their music.

The whole album is very mellow. Not something you're generally used to with a Mastodon release, but possibly traceable back to Brent's massive head injury (when you got a head ache that big, I'm sure the last thing you want to hear is a thrashing rock song). I'm not sure how involved he was before on other albums, but Brann definitely stepped up on this one. He claims that the "Skye" in the title and title track were inspired by his deceased sister Skye who committed suicide when she was young. That, and as I mentioned before the whole Russian thing more than likely came from Brann's experience there. The album has a very "folk" feel to it, which I guess is appropriate with the whole Russia theme. But I'd really like it if on the next album they don't completely abandon the screams/grunts/growls from prior albums that, in my opinion, really brought a different level of ferocity to their music. I have no problem with them being progressive, trying out new things, and changing their sounds as they wish, I just hope they don't cut out what made them awesome in the first place. Killer guitar riffs, fast-pace rock songs, expansive but unrepetitive slow songs, Brann's crazy drum fills (sorely missed; due to overall slower song tempos I guess), and mind boggling solos (no real stand outs on this album, except for that 10 second excerpt in the middle of the 10 minute long Czar; could this also be traced back to Brent's head injury? I dunno, and I don't want to come across as putting any type of blame on him).

So what I'm saying is, if you're a Mastodon fan, buy this album. If you only like Mastodon because you're some retarded metal head who only likes heavy stuff and you just happened to see Mastodon when they did that god awful tour with Slapknut and Disturbed, first off you might be disappointed, and secondly go kill yourself if you honestly like slipknot and disturbed. If you're new to Mastodon, you really like the clean vocals, and you want to get their other stuff, buy the albums in reverse order (Blood Mountain -> Remission) so you can slowly get used to the growling as the rest of us have slowly gotten used to the clean stuff. Neurosis fans should really dig this album too. But god dammnit, if these clean vocals start bringing in hipsters who wanna make Mastodon the new "underground it band" I'm gonna stab the next person I see wearing a skull hugging beanie when it's warm out right above the frames of their geeky-on-purpose wide frame glasses. Mastodon are still the same southern metal rockers they always were. And it's gonna take a lot more than some nicely done clean vocals to take away their bad assery.



Author's Edit: After watching the making of DVD I can give it a rating of 8/10. Very thorough, explained a lot of things including the album's theme (which I won't go over because it's long, and you should just find out for yourself), and really put some emotions and ideas behind the songs.

Also, upon further listening to the album I have to change my previous comments about the album's guitar solos. They are there, and they are well done, it's just that they fit right into the music instead of just standing by themselves.

Further more, it turns out there was keyboards on about 3-4 songs on this album. The keyboardist will more than likely be on tour with the rest of the members, and it may be possible that he will either become a full time member or be featured in future Mastodon work. Aside from the the keyboards, there are a slew of other percussion instruments that Brann had mixed in with some of the songs (especially The Czar and The Last Baron).