SOUNDTRACK: MASTODON-Blood Mountain (2006).
As I was in a metal/Black Sabbath kick, and Mastodon is always mentioned as a fantastic metal band, I figured I’d give them a try. As with The Sword, I saw no resemblance to Black Sabbath, and at first I was afraid it was just another sludgy death metal record.
[DIGRESSION]: I just read a great article in The Believer about the USBM (United States Black Metal) scene, and how it compares to the black metal in Norway and other European countries where the bands take the music seriously enough to burn churches and such. The article was really interesting. I knew some of the bands that he talked about, but the only ones I had heard were the “grandfathers” of the genre, like Venom and Bathory. Any of the new bands that he focused on, if I’d heard of them at all, I certainly hadn’t heard them. Regardless, it was a great read, and really got me hankering for a band like Mastodon, even though they’re not really in the genre at all.
Anyway, after two listens, I really got into the Mastodon album. I don’t know anything about their previous releases (except that they are heavy), but Blood Mountain is all over the map. It is a fascinating mix of thrash metal, hardcore, beautiful melodies, prog rock, and total chaos. In fact, the song “Bladecatcher,” is three and a half minutes of total insanity. I haven’t heard anything lie it since John Zorn’s Naked City. There’s a beautiful melody which progresses into a screaming guitar riff, which morphs into a headbanging thrash part which basically just unravels into a noisy spasm, wherein the high-pitched noises might be voices, or might by keyboards, or might just be the machine melting.
But that’s the most extreme end of the record. The rest is mostly just solid, galloping metal. Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age (and Eagles of Death Metal) and Cedric from Mars Volta make guest vocal appearances, and their section of the album–from tracks 7-11 are certainly the most melodic. The rest, especially the beginning, is just heavy. There are two vocalists in Mastodon–one is a growly voiced fellow and the other is slightly less so (from the liner notes I can’t tell who is who). They compliment each other pretty well, especially when the growly voice does the choruses like on “Sleeping Giant”‘s “shame…on….”
The melodic parts are really beautiful too. From classical-inspired pieces to Middle Eastern (by way of Led Zeppelin) motifs. It’s pretty great when a band can do so many things on one disc and yet still retain a sound that is distinctly their own.
My only gripe was that the last song is 22 minutes long…and that means 16 minutes of silence with some nonsense at the end. This “trick” was cute when bands first figured out it could be done, but now, come on, we’ve got better things to do. I finally got to hear the nonsense tonight (I’d always fast forwarded through it and then the disc was over) and it’s a letter from “Joshua” a big fan of the band. It’s funny, I suppose.
[READ: July 1, 2008] “Twenty-Two Stories”
I read one of Paul Theroux’s stories a few months back and enjoyed it. I wasn’t sure if I’d want to read a lot by him, but the title and concept behind this piece sucked me in. Indeed, it is 22 stories. Each story is a column or two. And each story shows a short slice of life of a different person. At first I thought they were all men, but some women come in near the end. Each story is pretty sad, but the range of sadness is pretty impressive. It wasn’t an earth-shattering collection, more of a sketchbook of ideas for interesting characters. However, like flash fiction, which this isn’t but which it resembles, he shows just how much impact a story of 100 or so words can have. You won’t come away with a favorite “story” but you will come away with an appreciation for an author who can create so many different characters and back stories with so few words.
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