First off, a warning: the best way to encounter Mastodon's Crack the Skye for the first time is with headphones. Reported to be a mystical -- if crunchy -- concept record about Tsarist Russia, this is actually the most involved set of tracks, both in terms of music and production, the band has ever recorded. "Ambitious" is a word that regularly greets Mastodon -- after all, they did an entire album based on Moby Dick -- but until now, that adjective may have been an understatement. There is so much going on in these seven tracks that it's difficult to get it all in a listen or two (one of the reasons that close encounters of the headphone kind are recommended). It may seem strange that the band worked with Bruce Springsteen producer Brendan O'Brien this time out, but it turns out to be a boon for both parties: for the band because O'Brien is obsessive about sounds, textures, and finding spaces in just the right places; for O'Brien because in his work with the Boss he's all but forgotten what the sounds of big roaring electric guitars and overdriven thudding drums can sound like. The guitar arrangements on tracks like "Divinations" and "The Czar," while wildly different from one another, are the most intricate, melodically complex things the band has ever recorded. There are also more subtle moments such as the menacing, brooding, and ultimately downer cuts such as "The Last Baron," where tempos are slowed and keyboards enter the fray and stretch the time, adding a much more multidimensional sense of atmosphere and texture. Still, Crack the Skye rocks, and hard! Its shifting tempos and key structures are far more meaty and forceful than most prog metal, and menace and cosmological speculation exist in equal measure, providing for a spot-on sense of balance. Some of the hardcore death metal conservatives may have trouble with this set, but the album wasn't recorded for them -- or anybody else. Crack the Skye is the sound of a band stretching itself to its limits and exploring the depth of its collective musical identity as a series of possibilities rather than as signatures. And yes, that is a good thing.
Last week, the conceptual prog/thrash/stoner metal masters in MASTODON came to the intimate Fine Line Music Cafe in the heart of downtown Minneapolis’s club district in support of their brilliant new album Crack the Skye, and without a single word spoken to the audience the entire night, the band played through a gripping set that [...]
More >
The album that will finally test the patience of the alternative elite that has supported them. True metalheads will love it.
More >
After various release date changes and all sorts of talk, Crack The Skye, Mastodon’s fourth full length, has finally arrived. Leading up to its release, speculation about a change of style for this album was rampant. Many rumors blew around suggesting they had completely changed to a mellow even more “post-metal” style and some even [...]
More >
YES!!! Life Is Good! I realize that it's Sunday and this isn't a cover tune, but I just had to post. I'm spinning a pre-release of CRACK THE SKYE, and banging my little Sunday morning head, and decided my Mog bredren needed a little METAL UP YOUR A$$.These guys are so real it's not funny. 100% genuine article. After 2 spins, I love this album already, and somehow lucked into a ticket to th...
More >
It's my understanding that Mastodon's Blood Mountain was a concept album much like Leviathan was. I say "it's my understanding" because I have no fucking idea what they were going on about. I mean, I get that they were looking for crystal skulls and yadda yadda, but once you get into that whole Lord of [...]
More >
Hey all, its been a while since I’ve updated this blog. We’ve been super busy over the past few months, most recently with the tour we just finished with Mastodon and Kylesa. This was without a doubt one of the most awesome tours we have ever been a part of. I’d like to publicly thank [...]
More >
[Writer and musician Tres Crow comes to us from the excellent blog Dog Eat Crow, for which I just published a Halloween-inspired list of The Top 5 Goriest Metal Album Covers of All Time. What follows is an incredible piece of creative writing written by Mr. Crow based on Mastodon's Crack the Skye. The first [...]
More >
In what's become a fashionable trend over the past five or six years, MySpace has turned into the place to go for new releases. While that's nothing new to most music fans, one has to wonder how much longer it will last as MySpace is falling well behind other networking sites.Anyway, stoner-metal stalwarts, Mastadon's new album, Crack the Skye, is now up on MySpace. The disc is officially relea...
More >
YES!!! Life Is Good! I realize that it's Sunday and this isn't a cover tune, but I just had to post. I'm spinning a pre-release of CRACK THE SKYE, and banging my little Sunday morning head, and decided my Mog bredren needed a little METAL UP YOUR A$$.These guys are so real it's not funny. 100% genuine article. After 2 spins, I love this album already, and somehow lucked into a ticket to th...
More >
Mastodon have announced Crack the Skye as the title of their new album. There's still no release date but the track listing is as follows: 01. Oblivion 02. Divinations 03. Quintessence 04. The Czar I. Usurper II. Escape III. Martyr IV. Spiral 05. Ghost of Karelia 06. Crack The Skye 07. The Last Baron I first read about this story on Blabbermouth. Since they quoted our interview [...]
More >
…reader Mark VanDeusen just tipped us off that Crack the Skye has been named number three on Time Magazine’s The Top 10 Everything of 2009 list. Which I imagine will be read by slightly more non-metal fans than, say, Decibel’s year-end list. Just a guess, though.Unfortunately, the author of the accompanying blurb, Josh Tyrangiel, comes [...]
More >
Mastodon Cracks the Skye in half! Mastodon has always been a band that pays great attention to their albums packaging and as a result we are always treated with the most over the top , bad ass album art with them. With their latest effort Crack the Skye, they not only deliver, but they up [...]
More >
After various release date changes and all sorts of talk, Crack The Skye, Mastodon’s fourth full length, has finally arrived. Leading up to its release, speculation about a change of style for this album was rampant. Many rumors blew around suggesting they had completely changed to a mellow even more “post-metal” style and some even [...]
More >
NAME : Mastodon PROGRESS REPORT : Crack The Skye out early 2009; recorded in Atlanta, Georgia at Southern Tracks studioYou don't need us or Mastodon vocalist/bassist Troy Sanders to tell you what Mastodon's next LP, Crack the Skye , will sound like. It's going to be some combination of "brutal," "fucking" and "epic." But the album does follow some brutal problems for the band. One setback, says...
More >
Ok, maybe we've been talking about MASTODON a bit too much on the site lately, but that's just because we can't stop listening to their new CD, Crack the Skye which came out yesterday. The band celebrated by playing a record release show at Criminal Records in their hometown of Atlanta, GA. The fine people [...]
More >
According to Billboard.com, Atlanta-based progressive metal band Mastodon will perform its new album, "Crack the Skye", in its entirety on the group's upcoming tour.The complete album performance is something new for the group, says bassist Bill Kelliher, but "there's something about ["Crack The Skye"] where it would be...
More >
© 2006-2010 Mog Inc. All Rights Reserved
 "Crack the Skye")
