While you were off doing whatever it is you do at 1 p.m. on Tuesdays, I was out at Newbury Comics buying the new Mastodon album, Crack The Skye. Yes, I not only spent money on music, I actually received a physical disc (with bonus DVD) in exchange for that money. I wouldn’t do something wild and old-fashioned like that unless I was confident that I was going to get something worthwhile out of it. Fortunately, worthwhile is a woefully inadequate a word to descibe this album. Essential might be a little more appropriate.

Before I get into strange bouts of nerd-ilepsy (which will take place on the other side of the jump), I want to point out something that I haven’t seen anyone else mention. I read a lot of comments saying that the cover of the album was a little cheesy and disappointing (The image above certainly looks that way, but the actual cover looks much better. the inks and colors just interact better than the pixels of light do.) but nobody has thanked Mastodon for bringing back the strangest movie villain of all time: Lo-Pan.

It’s not a complete match, but it’s always nice to see Big Trouble in Little China get a nod.

And now, onto the nerd-ulation:

There was a lot of talk that Mastodon were going with a more progressive, hard-rock direction for this album.  Considering that the talk came from the band itself, I’d say that’s a pretty accurate description. But it still sounds like Mastodon, inasmuch as any of their albums really sound like they came from the same band. It’s a good bet that if you loved the last two albums (Leviathan and Blood Mountain), you’re going to have your head destroyed by Crack The Skye.

Imagine if the last four Mastodon albums had been distilled down to only their best elements and combined into one song. You’d still have all the wild rage and testicular fortitude of the Call of the Mastodon and Remission, along with the spaced out prog-rock concepts  of Leviathan and Blood Mountain. Now, pretend that instead of one song, it seven songs. That’s Crack the Skye.

It’s everything that made Mastodon the best band of the last decade, without the zone-out parts that made people question that assertion. Only, they’re even better this time out.

The biggest difference is with the vocals. The two-singer dynamic of Brent Hinds and Troy Sanders has been expanding with every album, and they’ve both only become better singers with time. There’s less screaming and growling than on past releases, but I’ve always contended that there’s nothing wrong with a little more melody.

This is also, by the way, easily the best guitar album anyone has put out in years. First of all, it’s a gear head’s wet dream. There are so many different tones and sounds throughout the album, from the typical high-gain sludge to trippy Pink Floyd lead tones, and they’ve actually turned down the gain knobs so you can hear everything. Somehow, it’s clean sounding and immensely powerful all at once.

(Unrelated personal aside: this is my bedroom, circa Junior year of high school/2004:

That picture doesn’t even cover all the other random gear I’ve bought and sold throughout the years. You can see why I love the gear head aspect.)

But all the guitar tone would be useless if this wasn’t also a player’s album. There are so many guitar solos on this album. Brent Hinds has always been a good guitarist without really being considered a guitar hero, but this is a huge boost to his resume towards that end. My only complaint is that there aren’t as many huge riffs as there were on previous efforts, but they’ve been replaced by a stronger focus on melody and grooves.

Like their last two, there’s an overarching concept to the whole thing. As Drummer Brann Dailor (who wrote most of the lyrics) explains on the DVD included with the deluxe edition, the story is about a parapalygic who experiments with astral projection but gets lost in the ether until he reappears in czarist Russia, where Rasputin rescues him and brings him back to his body. Or something like that. All told, it’s pretty much on par with Blood Mountain.

One really interesting thing is that seem to be basing all of their albums on elements. The back cover of the liner notes has a graphic with the logos of their four albums, which appear to signify fire (Remission), water (Leviathan) and earth (Blood Mountain), with Crack the Skye as air. Presumably their next album will be about Ma-Ti and his monkey, with their final opus simply being a 50 minute cover of the Captain Planet theme song.

Personally, I didn’t realize that there were enough drugs out there to come up with this stuff. I’m glad somebody’s crazy enough to take them all at once though.