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Tusk analysis
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Mastodon’s 2006 metal masterpiece, Blood Mountain, was just unbeatable, which had many of their fans muttering, “How are they gonna top that?” Their recent, aptly titled record Crack the Skye easily surpasses it with songs fleshed out to epic proportions and prog elements coming even more to the fore. “We don’t really go into records thinking, how are we going to beat the last one? We just go in with a fresh start,” says drummer Brann Dailor. “When we’re songwriting, we don’t really talk about it much, it just happens pretty naturally. We just go by feel and we’ll know it when something good happens. We can arrange songs for months and sometimes we just need somebody to take the paintbrushes away from us.” Mastodon’s sound is hardly nipping at any heels, and it’s no wonder that the band have garnered fans from well beyond the metal realm, but as Dailor explains, their original sound was not forced. “I’m just really lucky that I got to meet the right people and become involved with people who have become my musical soulmates. A lot of people just jam with whoever is around and sometimes they miss that chemistry. Mastodon is something that can’t be manipulated or put together, it’s just something that happens. The first time we played together, it was instant and I knew right away that it was a special and different sound.” With the band’s increased technical complexity, exhaustive song lengths and prog prowess, it seems they are flying directly in the face of the pitch-corrected, simplified pop formula that is currently clogging the charts, and the success of their unproven sound has been growing exponentially. It could be attributed to providing an alternative while boasting major-label muscle and hustle, but Dailor ain’t biting. “Even if music is created to solely move units, it’s still music. Somewhere out there is a 13-year-old girl who gets through her problems with Britney Spears records, and no matter how trivial I would find that girl’s problems, that’s her whole world. That’s what music is supposed to do, good and bad.” WITH KYLESA AND INTRONAUT AT |
