Off the Record: Mastodon

Nov 10

Prologue: Call of the Mastodon:

For two decades now, Atlanta-based sludge stalwarts Mastodon have stampeded the world of heavy music, consistently providing some of the most eclectic and inventive metal of the 21st century. At the time of their formation in 2000, metal as a genre was coming off of a long lull known as the late 90s. Sludge metal and progressive metal had been through a particularly rough season since the speed-obsessed thrash movement of the 80s, with only a few notable albums being released during that decade. But with the turn of the century, Mastodon, along with other sludge/prog acts like ISIS, Neurosis, and Pelican, took the world of metal by storm.

There’s a lot that sets Mastodon apart from their contemporaries. Their emotive play style, enigmatic album concepts, and southern charm certainly help them out. But what makes Mastodon so one-of-a-kind within this subgenre is their commitment to mobility within their music. It may seem intuitive, but some of the bands I mentioned above get so caught up in creating atmosphere in their projects, they forget to have them go anywhere. Mastodon, on the other hand, gives each album a clear direction in addition to a larger-than-life ambience.

Throughout their seven-album discography, bassist Troy Sanders, guitarist Bill Kelliher, guitarist Brent Hinds, and drummer Brann Dailor have journeyed through the lands of sludge metal, psychedelic rock, progressive metal, and arena rock – and conquered them all. Dubbed “the most important new band in metal” by Rolling Stone, this group of “doom-haunted, myth-obsessed, meat-and-potatoes Southern badasses” has already left an unshakeable heavy metal legacy.

And herein lies the issue of this article – in a discography as airtight as theirs, which albums can be considered the best? In order to get to the bottom of this, I’ve decided to separate Mastodon’s discography into two camps – bona fide sludge metal era and prog/psychedelic era – and then choose from among these categories. I’ve chosen to exclude Mastodon’s stadium-rock flirtations (a la The Hunter, Emperor of Sand, etc.), because, although these albums are expertly crafted in their own right, they simply aren’t ahead of the curve enough to go toe to toes (get it?) with the band’s earlier work.

From the sludge metal era, Leviathan is the clear candidate. Call of the Mastodon and Remission laid critical groundwork in the band’s musical infrastructure, but Leviathan takes these ideas and expands them exponentially, adding a conceptual twist that pushes this album from great to immaculate.

And in the prog/psychedelic camp, it’s no surprise to any Mastodon fan that Crack the Skye is our main contender. The opposing candidate, Blood Mountain, comfortably sits in the third-place spot within Mastodon’s discography. It’s just as high-concept and boundary-pushing as Crack the Skye, but the latter record is much more cathartic and immersive, which greatly works in its favor.

These two albums are representative of Mastodon’s most fundamentally different writing styles. This is probably why, although Leviathan and Crack the Skye consistently top Mastodon album rankings, they rarely appear sequentially. Some people love Mastodon’s overblown sludge, while others prefer when they lean into their strong prog rock influences. Be that as it may, you’re here for a verdict on which of the two albums is Mastodon’s best work, and as a longtime fan of all things Mastodon, I’m inclined to give you one.

With that, let’s get into what makes both of these albums such fierce contenders.

Part 1: Leviathan

After the overwhelmingly positive reviews for the band’s first full-length LP, Remission, they were determined not to fall victim to the infamous sophomore slump. With Leviathan, the band doubled down on their overdriven intensity, but traded their bohemian rage for a more transcendent, storytelling disposition. The songs on this album flow into each other like the cascading waves on its cover, painting a cohesive picture that realizes the preliminary sketches of Remission.

Leviathan was also the first of many concept albums from Mastodon, this one following the story of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. The record’s captivating lyrics, corroborated by its expressive composition, tell this classic tale with exciting dynamism and refreshing rawness. This album had metalheads everywhere reaching for the bookshelf after it finished playing – not many bands can say that.

The album starts incredibly strong with the pummeling “Blood and Thunder.” To be perfectly clear - this is one of the best metal songs of all time, and, in my opinion, the best song within the sludge metal subgenre. The band undoubtedly made the right decision when they chose to begin the album with this juggernaut of a track. In doing so, they introduce the villain of the story before the hero, which creates the perfect springboard towards the dismal journey that takes place across this album. The song’s energetic introduction never fails to create bone-breaking mosh pits at the band’s live shows, and Brann Dailor’s panicked fills ensure that there are no dull moments. The chorus’s huge, climbing power chords conjure the image of this gargantuan white whale breaching the ocean’s surface, inspiring awe and fear in onlookers. As the main vocalist on this track, Sanders is the mouthpiece of doom and destruction, narrating Ahab’s primal, unfettered rage at this beast. The midsection of the song features an odd tempo (11/8) and frenetic guitar riffage, allowing the band to groove along to Dailor’s jaw-dropping drumwork before launching into the pounding cannon-fire of the song’s bridge and ending. This track is relentless, perfectly illustrating the rawness and intensity of the story of Moby Dick. This is sludge-era Mastodon at their absolute best.

Then comes “I Am Ahab.” The second song on the album, true to its title, formally introduces the protagonist of the story. It’s an almost danceable 6/8 groove, which creates an expansive sonic landscape the size of the high seas. This song offers a captivating image of a deadly and untamed ocean alongside the man who aims to conquer it. Bill Kelliher plays searing syncopated power chords on the chorus, while Brent Hinds shows off his chops in the song’s frantic solo section and Brann Dailor once again boggles listeners’ minds with his inventive drum fills. This song is another clear highlight on the album – it’s fast, expressive, and shows no mercy.

“Seabeast,” on the other hand, is positively ghostly, featuring a wailing guitar lead over an eerily disjointed acoustic progression. This instrumental section repeats several times throughout the song, interweaved with anxiously chaotic chord movement on the verses. The bridge features some more of the transcendent bellowing that listeners have come to expect from Sanders at this point in the album. However, with an enrapturing narrative progression in the lyrics and some colossal riffage at the end of the song, this track easily keeps listeners engaged and anticipating more.

If “Seabeast” is the calm, then “Island” is definitely the storm. This song starts out at a breakneck pace, with massive distortion and beastlike vocals from Sanders. With this song, Mastodon demonstrates perfect control over the tension of this album. It moves from a chugging verse with white-hot guitar riffs to double-time instrumental chaos. This brief section builds tension and anxiety until the grimy bass of the verse returns to dispel it. More than any other song on the album, “Island” hearkens back to Remission-era Mastodon with its downright nasty distortion and dizzying speed. Not only that, but the song’s outro is one of the most unabashedly groovy moments on the album.

The subsequent track has some of the most creative and innovative riffs in Mastodon’s entire discography. “Iron Tusk,” named after a slang term for a harpoon, depicts the bloody first fight between Ahab’s crew and Moby Dick. A thunderous drum fill leads listeners into a frenzy of menacing guitar chugging and demented vocal harmonies. On this track, the band constructs a tidal wave of sound and speeds out of its way right before it crashes down into an explosion of sludgy brutality. The song manages to be sophisticated and intricate while also maintaining its rawness and lyrical narrative. This is another clear standout on the album, second only to “Blood and Thunder.”

On the next track, “Megalodon,” Mastodon pays homage to the lyrical mythos of bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica, and Black Sabbath with their own song about the mythical creatures of the deep. It begins with acoustic dissonance that gives way to a barrage of distortion and drum fills. Around the 1:20 mark, Brent Hinds (with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek) tips his 10-gallon hat to his country music roots with an unabashedly twangy guitar riff that transitions the song into an up-tempo thrash anthem, which it maintains for the duration of the track.

The blistering intensity of “Megalodon” transitions seamlessly into the swaying, almost waltz-like “Naked Burn.” This track begins with a rock’n’roll guitar lick reminiscent of AC/DC’s early days before falling into a whirlpool of sludge riffs and spine-chilling vocals by Hinds. The chorus of this song is one of the most downright beautiful moments on this album, illustrating Mastodon’s expertise in interweaving pounding metal songs with emotionally evocative content. This track is another favorite, and its brief moment of instrumental carnage at the end provides a perfect transition into the next song.

One of the most punishing tracks on the album, “Aqua Dementia” begins with an intricate and engaging web of guitarwork that wastes no time in descending into a furious thrash exercise. This song gains intensity as it progresses, building on itself with every new section and accelerating towards a massive, imposing final push. Passionate guest vocals from Neurosis’s Scott Kelly on this section further demonstrate the band’s ability engage its audience emotionally. Lyrically, this song takes cues from Herman Melvilles’ environmental message within Moby Dick, featuring ominously prophetic lines such as

“God will watch it burn

Releasing souls again

Within the wrath we wait

To be dirt again.”

And then comes the narrative climax of this album, “Hearts Alive.” Across the ample lyrical exposition of this 14-minute behemoth, Ahab and his crew approach Moby Dick after months at sea, engage the monstrous whale in battle, and are pulled underwater by its immense force. The track’s chilling opening instrumental sets the stage for the calamity that unfolds later with its frenetic drums and dynamic bass runs. The rest of this song skirts in and out of different moods with ease, as though marking scenes in a movie rather than sections of a song. To that point, this track functions less like the closer of an album and more like its own cinematic vignette. The band doesn’t tell the story of this song linearly – rather, they chose to entwine the intense, primal chorus (which illustrates the mass drowning of the crew) with calmer sections that follow the actions leading up to this. This song is a torrent of emotions – the anxiety of the crew as they approach Moby Dick, the shock and awe of the sheer size of the beast, the monomaniacal madness of Ahab, the sorrow of the lone surviving crewmate. These rapid mood shifts are set to a hodgepodge of intelligent, inventive motifs. The best song on this album may be up for debate, but one thing’s for sure – the way that the band skillfully translates emotion and narrative into music on “Hearts Alive” puts this song in a league of its own.

With the narrative of the album having ended, “Joseph Merrick” is not the closing statement of the album. Rather, it’s a brief, forlorn reprieve from “Hearts Alive” that punctuates the tragedy of the story that has taken place across Leviathan. The song’s title continues Mastodon’s tradition of ending albums with instrumental songs named after the Elephant Man. “Joseph Merrick” is preceded by “Elephant Man,” which closes Remission, and succeeded by “Pendulous Skin,” which closes the band’s subsequent album, Blood Mountain. This song is emotive and intricate, but sparse enough that it provides the listener a space to process the sheer weight of this album before it eventually ends.

Part 2: Crack the Skye

Mastodon’s fourth full-length album sees them enter never-before traversed realms of musical complexity. With this record, the band dropped some of the bruising intensity of their classic sludge metal sound in favor of a slow-burn, atmospherically oriented album listening experience.

Lyrically, this album is a highly conceptual experience. The band members are no strangers to abstract album concepts, but boy, is this one esoteric. Like its predecessor Blood Mountain, Crack the Skye follows a story that the band members wrote themselves – this one is about deep space, Steven Hawking’s wormhole theories, and astral traveling. Brann Dailor summarizes it in a 2009 interview:

"There is a paraplegic and the only way that he can go anywhere is if he astral travels. He goes out of his body, into outer space and, a bit like Icarus, he goes too close to the sun, burning off the golden umbilical cord that is attached to his solar plexus. So, he is in outer space and he is lost, he gets sucked into a wormhole, he ends up in the spirit realm and he talks to spirits telling them that he is not really dead. So, they send him to the Russian cult, they use him in a divination and they find out his problem. They decide they are going to help him. They put his soul inside Rasputin’s body. Rasputin goes to usurp the czar and he is murdered. The two souls fly out of Rasputin's body through the crack in the sky and Rasputin is the wise man that is trying to lead the child home to his body because his parents have discovered him by now and think that he is dead. Rasputin needs to get him back into his body before it's too late. But they end up running into the Devil along the way and the Devil tries to steal their souls and bring them down…there are some obstacles along the way.”

Far out.

The band certainly has a lot of fun with this harebrained narrative, but the more serious side of this album is its homage to Brann Dailor’s younger sister, Skye, for whom the album is named. Skye died by suicide at age fourteen, a fact that Dailor has stated he has never truly gotten over. Skye’s death had a lasting impact on Dailor, who developed a drug addiction that eventually necessitated his being admitted into a mental institution. After a long, arduous recovery process that lasted into the early days of Mastodon, Dailor felt compelled to write about Skye in his musical outlet. Thus, Crack the Skye was written, almost entirely about Dailor’s experience.

The record kicks off with “Oblivion,” also known as the best song Mastodon has ever written (and in my opinion, the best progressive metal song of all time). From front to back, this album’s first track is rife with everything there is to love about this band. It’s emblematic of both the far-fetched concept of the album and the very real grieving process that Dailor was airing out on this record. The song opens with a simple, two-pitch opening riff played over a trudging, bass-heavy groove in 4/4. Suddenly, the song switches to a 3/4 verse section that sounds lonely and desolate, like it’s floating through space. Brann Dailor’s extended drum fills are jarring and unexpected, creating a thick atmosphere of anticipation and anxiety as the song shifts tempos yet again into a brisk 6/8 pre-chorus. The band’s use of emotive jazz chords here corroborates the passionate, mournful atmosphere of this song. By this point in the track, it’s clear that Brann Dailor is leading the band, uncommon for a drummer. However, the way his unconventional fills smoothly facilitate tempo changes that would otherwise sound forced and disjointed is undeniable. The lyrics, written by Dailor, are vulnerable, personal, and tragically candid. He lays his heartache bare with his mythological allegories,

“I flew beyond the Sun before it was time.”

unsubtle cries of self-accusation,

“Lost love, bright eyes fading faster than stars falling

How can I tell you that I failed?”

and, in the song’s chorus, references to real-life events that occurred in the wake of Skye’s death.

“Falling from grace ‘cause I’ve been away too long

Leaving you behind with my lonesome song

Now I’m lost in oblivion.”

The chorus’s lyrics are fairly intuitive on their own, but given the historical context of the actual day that Skye passed away, they take on a tortured, lamenting emotional character. The first line is situated in the past – Dailor believes that he could have saved his sister, but he was not able to because he was away from their family home when she died. The second is situated in the present, a vocal commitment from Dailor to finally let his sister go, to leave her behind with this song as a tribute to her memory.

TL;DR: This is Mastodon at their best.

As the final chord of “Oblivion” dies down, “Divinations” announces itself from the background with a menacing banjo riff (which sounds like an oxymoron, but the band somehow pulls it off). This track juggles relentless riffage with thunderous blowouts of sound, mixing the compositional prowess of prog metal with the catharsis of sludge. The band manages to make this chorus one of the catchiest earworms of the album without forfeiting its eccentricity or electricity. Brent Hinds takes the vocal reigns on this track, juxtaposing white-hot rage on the verses with claustrophobic wailing on the chorus. The rattling guitars and off-kilter drum grooves on the solo section of “Divinations” make it one of Mastodon’s best instrumental vignettes as well. Lyrically, this song continues the story of the album’s astral-projecting protagonist, narrating his being trapped in the spirit realm, led by spirits into a Tsarist Russian cult, and used for divinations.

Enter “Quintessence.” Here’s where the album’s concept gets wild. Over the course of this song’s psychedelic exposition, the protagonist’s soul is taken from the spirit realm and inserted into the body of Rasputin. And I thought Moby Dick was far-fetched. The verses are thematic, almost jazzy, while the pre-choruses are kaleidoscopic and disorienting. These sections of the song progress the narrative of the protagonist’s spirit entering Rasputin’s body, while the primal grunts of “Letting go!” on the song’s hook indicate the fear the protagonist has about leaving the spirit realm and becoming one with Rasputin’s spirit. Musically, this song is a work of masterful craftsmanship. The bass and guitars interact in unique ways that create some of the most interesting textures of any metal song I’ve ever heard. And Dailor, as always, ups the surprise factor to a thousand with his left-field drumwork. Mastodon has never been one to back away from jazz flirtations, and that certainly shows on this track.

From the moment the ghostly keyboard begins playing on “The Czar,” this song promises to be a journey of epic proportions. It contains four different sections, separated by name but also distinguishable by their musical styles and lyrical perspectives. The first section, “The Usurper” is sung mostly from the perspective of Tsar Nicholas II’s wife, who is warning him about Rasputin’s assassination plot. This part is an orchestra of multi-layered haunted-house spookery, with Brent Hinds’ mechanical vocals adding some eerie overtones. The bassline is one of the best of any Mastodon song, with Sanders gliding up and down the instrument’s neck like a phantom in an abandoned mansion. As the assassination plot fails and Rasputin is killed, the song swiftly transitions to an up-tempo funk-rock groove that marks the entrance of “The Escape.” If sludge metal, prog rock, and funk were baked into a pie together, “The Escape” would be its name on the menu. This song is the powerhouse of the bunch, an unstoppable freight train chock full of intelligent riffs, spooky vocals, and a tasteful tambourine line. Lyrically, this section follows the souls of Rasputin and the protagonist as they urgently try to escape back to the spirit realm through the crack in the sky. The satisfying final thud of this section breaks through to the brief ambient instrumental, “The Martyr.” This section is a sigh of relief from the previous one, with Rasputin and the protagonist having successfully made it back to the spirit realm. The final section, “The Spiral,” barges in with a monolithic, giant-steps guitar riff that quickly expands into a vast landscape of emotive psychedelia. The mix here opens up to cavernous proportions, effectively illustrating our protagonists “spiraling up through the crack in the sky.”

The next song sees Mastodon reach new heights of soundscape conjuring. Balancing a flighty, meandering verse with a vast, arena-worthy chorus, “The Ghost of Karelia” utilizes dissonant arpeggiations and odd percussion patterns to create a sonic experience that’s as disorienting as it is punishing. The lyrics of this song describe the soul of Rasputin as he travels through space-time, trying to help the album’s protagonist re-enter his physical body. Morphing synthesizers and Sanders’ gutsy bellows on the bridge drive this point home, illustrating the characters’ urgent movement through outer space. Another highlight of this track is, unsurprisingly, Dailor’s drumming. Throughout the song, he showcases some of his most precise, literate technical skills to date. Perfectly timed rolls, deft hand/foot independence, and tasteful ghost notes make all the difference in this track’s web of intricacy.

Some songs on this album are lofty in concept, lyrical reflections of the band’s mythological interests during the time in which they were writing. Not “Crack the Skye.” The album’s title track, is a very real and very raw account of Dailor’s headspace on the day he found out his sister had died. After the lamenting classic rock intro, guest vocalist Scott Kelly (who has performed on every Mastodon album since Leviathan) delivers some throat-shredding howls over a heavy, lethargic guitar line. On the chorus, which Dailor sings, the drums are pummeling, almost berserk, as if Dailor is airing out his intense emotions on the kit. However, outside the chorus, the drumming on this track is much less overt than any other track on the album, which is perhaps a deliberate effort by Dailor to bring more attention to the song’s lyrics rather than its musicality. In terms of lyrics, they’re nothing short of heartbreaking. Dailor poured all his grief, all his suffering into this track, documenting the moment where he found out he had lost his sister, which he has stated in interviews “was enough to crack the sky.” However, while his voice adds meaningful depth to the song’s narrative, Kelly’s bestial growl portrays the grittiness, the rawness, the ugliness of the grieving process that is so real to those who have been through it. This song is a genuine tear-jerker, and a powerful tribute to Skye Dailor.

Ending an album with a lengthy rock opera is a gutsy move, but Mastodon sticks the landing with flying colors. Clocking in at thirteen minutes, the length of “The Last Baron” is second only to “Hearts Alive” within Mastodon’s whole discography. However, while “Hearts Alive” shifts in perspective so as to keep the song interesting throughout its length, this track maintains its point of view throughout the whole song, utilizing an eclectic array of compositional styles to keep this track engaging throughout. Following the return of the album’s protagonist to his physical body, this song is cinematic, I daresay theatrical in its construction. Each section carries a brand of authority that manages to be unique without being arbitrary, which is exceedingly difficult for a song of this length. There are sections of atmospheric prog metal, groovy art rock, some unashamed funk metal, and several obvious hat-tips to prog progenitors King Crimson, Rush, and Yes – in other words, this song’s got the works. And yet, despite how diverse the pieces of the song are, they flow together effortlessly, like a rainbow of colors in the world’s largest lava lamp. It’s easy for metal songs of this length, especially album closers, to devolve into one overdriven riff circling the drain for fifteen minutes. The assumption of the bands that write these songs seems to be “Well, you’ve listened this far, so there’s no reason you’d stop now.” Mastodon makes no such generalizations of their listeners. They put meticulous effort and creativity into making every minute of this track as enchanting as the last, pushing themselves to their artistic limits, earning every bit of the listenership that they get. “The Last Baron” is a testament to the band’s effort and passion, a fitting end to their unequivocal best album

Part 3: Toe to Toes – Verdict & Analysis

Okay, maybe I jumped the gun a little bit with the verdict, but it’s hardly a contest.

On its own, Leviathan is an absolute triumph, an innovator in its field whose influence has been felt for almost two decades and will continue to be felt. There’s no need to argue about that. But when compared to Crack the Skye, it’s clearly a sophomore record. Its texture is creative but unrefined, its vocals are expressive but lacking in the depth displayed on later albums, its track list is dynamic but slightly unfocused. The tracks are less distinguishable from one another than on Crack the Skye. The album’s goliath, “Hearts Alive,” could have been a few minutes shorter, and its atmospheric content simply doesn’t compare to that of its competitor, “The Last Baron.” Finally, why Brann Dailor was not featured as a vocalist until the band’s fourth album is beyond me.

Don’t mistake my critique for resentment – Leviathan is still one of the greatest metal albums of all time. Mastodon’s relentless inventions on this album laid crucial groundwork for their magnum opus. But its “critical mass” approach falls slightly short of the mythical odyssey of Crack the Skye.

As evidenced by Leviathan, Mastodon has always had stories to tell with their albums However, it seems like with Crack the Skye, they had all the requisite tools with which to do so to their maximum potential. The riffs on this album are like nothing I’ve ever heard before (I would say “out of this world,” but we’ve had a bad enough year as is). The drumming is as masterful as it’s always been, but on this record, it carries a weighty narrative authority that progresses the album’s story in a concise and illustrative way. The vocals and lyrics have a rawness to them, still rooted in mythos but no longer so entrenched in it that they obscure the singers’ emotions.

Speaking of emotions, the way this album deals with Dailor’s real-life struggles is revolutionary within heavy metal music. Metal songs generally falls into two lyrical narratives: the all-powerful dominator (think Slayer or Slipknot) and the self-flagellating, care-rejecting dominated (think KoRn or Nine in ). In either case, there exists a subliminal denouncing of community and the importance of friendship. That isn’t the case with Crack the Skye. During the writing process of this album, Dailor called on his bandmates to be sources of support for him as he underwent the process of accepting Skye’s death. The willingness and ability of the four men in this band to be so supportive of one another, so vulnerable among themselves and with their audience, is utterly contrary to the stoic individualist narrative present in most popular metal songs.

Furthermore, the way the vocals are split amongst four different singers (Brent, Brann, Troy, and guest Scott Kelly) is in complete opposition to the image of the “alpha male” that is often purported within this genre. Dailor could have easily taken on all the vocal duties of this album himself, but he instead chose to share the heaviness of these words and this story with his bandmates. At no point in this song are any of the singers trying to outperform one another – they collaborate with each other, as if saying “Brann, you don’t have to go through this alone.”

I don’t mean to be too sentimental, but that’s exactly what this album is.

Leviathan has three more tracks than Crack the Skye, but given Mastodon’s writing style, this works to the advantage of the latter. Crack the Skye is actually a longer project, clocking in at 50 minutes compared to Leviathan’s 46, and the minimal silence between the pieces of this album makes it all the more cohesive. The cohesion of this album can also be attributed to the flexibility of its concept. When writing about Moby Dick, the band had to stick to at least some form of narrative framework that existed before a note of the music was written. But because Crack the Skye’s story was entirely written by the band, the music and the narrative direction were able to develop alongside one another, like intertwined vines growing up a pole.

It’s this effortless continuity that shows how much Mastodon has progressed as a band since their Remission days. The songs they’re writing are no longer recordings of garage band jam seshes – they’re sophisticated, elegant projects that are carefully crafted down to every last detail.

Leviathan is a colossal success, and it has earned its “classic” status in the metal world a hundred times over. To think of it as a stepping stone would have been far-fetched at best pre-2009. And yet, Mastodon had their sights set on greatness of cosmic proportions. With Crack the Skye, they achieved it.

Epilogue: Beginner’s Guide to the Greatest Band on Earth

So, you want to get into Mastodon?

Start with Crack the Skye!