Crack the Skye
Mastodon follow the amazing Leviathan/Blood Mountain 1-2 with a Brendan O'Brien-produced LP that mixes more rock and prog into their metal core.
Weird, noisy, and impossibly complex, Mastodon’s 2006 major-label debut, Blood Mountain, quelled fears that the Atlanta group would dumb down its high-concept metal for mass exposure. Instead, Blood Mountain found the quartet using its bigger budget as an excuse to go wild with progressive-rock virtuosity and studio…
Mastodon's latest, Crack the Skye, proves one obvious fact: as far as modern metal goes, you can’t do much better than these guys.
First off, a warning: the best way to encounter Mastodon's Crack the Skye for the first time is with headphones.
<p><strong>Emma Johnston</strong> is fascinated by a crazed prog metal album about Russia and Rasputin</p>
Any album that comes with its own built-in hype machine or slapped with the "next-big-thing" tag before proving its worth to the public should be met with a certain amount of caution and even skepticism. That goes doubly for metal bands that break through the underground and find themselves a part o...
The band’s affinity for harmony and subtle melodicism elevates Skye over heavier exercises in drop-tuned brutality.
Two and a half years ago, we expected Mastodon to pull out all the stops on their hugely anticipated third album, and they didn't disappoint, as the...