Metal bands are notorious for being secretly (or not so secretly) nerdy. Mastodon is a champion at injecting fantasy and science fiction references into their heavy, psychedelic songs (“Hunt for Ogres and Dwarves”, anyone?), but their latest offering Crack The Skye one-ups Blood Mountain (their 2006 album) with enough astral physics references to make Stephen Hawking blush.
Atlanta, Georgia based Mastodon are the kind of badass MoFos you would not want to cross while in broad daylight on a busy street. These are the guys that skipped English class in high school, and instead hung out in the cafeteria, dropping acid, playing D&D, and discussing the finer points of Camus and Ginsberg. They’re rough in the centre as well as the edges, they’ve been to hell and back, and they can pour all their experiences and intellect into math-rock melodies that run circles around almost every other metal band. NME won’t touch these guys.
Brann Dailor is the lyricist as well as the percussionist. Crack The Skye is Dailor’s brainchild, a metaphysical homage to the ethereal nature of the Universe, and a tribute to his sister Skye who committed suicide at age 14. With a story-scope aimed to cover Tsarist Russian art aesthetic, astral travel, and spirit as transfixion, Mastodon could easily have bit off far too much with Crack… yet they never allow themselves to be weighed down by the massive themes, nor stray into contrived metal riffs.
Crack The Skye starts slowly. “Oblivion”, the first track, creeps out of the gates using minor melodic chords spaced out like barbed hooks. Building in pace and power, it is a full minute before we hear Brent Hinds’ vocals: “Flew beyond the sun before it was time/ Burning all the gold that held me inside my shell”. Already we have left our bodies and are traveling beyond our own experiences.
A sucker for good lyrics, I could take up pages just discussing the themes and style showcased on this album: they are heartbreaking, yet encouraging; mystifying, yet grounded. Dailor’s world (or Universe, rather) is eerie, but not altogether unfamiliar. Particularly, the elaborate four-part track “The Czar”, which employs synth and the creepy refrain “Don’t stay/ Run away”, is a ghostly audio-track to the assassination of a king. We know the story of the Romanovs well (last reigning Russian royalty who met their end in the 1918 Bolshevik revolution), but here the chronicle is told less as a history lesson and more as a suggestion in the nature of the eternal soul.
Crack The Skye is so complex and varying in style that it takes many listens to even begin grasping Mastodon’s grand plan. Immediately gripping, but only appreciated properly with time, this is an album that surpasses all current Progressive Metal standards. Get lost in Hinds’ voice and Dailor’s words, then find astral wisdom with Mastodon.
Track Listing:
1. Oblivion
2, Divination
3. Quintessence
4. The Czar: I.Usurper, II. Escape, III. Martyr, IV. Spiral
5. Ghost of Karelia
6. Crack The Skye
7. Last Baron
