Crack the Skye
Reprise/Relapse
Crack the Skye is all the proof necessary to show that Mastodon, one of the best American bands currently going, is not content to rest on its laurels. This is the band's third consecutive concept album, with the other two being the Moby Dick-inspired Leviathan and the epic Blood Mountain. Crack the Skye aims even higher by tackling Czarist Russia in a prog-metal context.
The writing and recording of Crack the Skye makes for quite the sordid, little soap opera involving vertigo, the Las Vegas strip, physical therapy, and fighting System of a Down. These events have been covered thoroughly throughout the internet so, please, click here to read all the gory details.
Listeners with a penchant for brutality will likely be disappointed with Crack the Skye, as the album firmly cements Mastodon in the progressive music world. Even the dudes in Dream Theater are down with Mastodon. This in no way means that Mastodon isn’t metal anymore. It simply means that the band is playing a different style of metal; especially for an arena band. On one hand, it’s very easy to throw Mastodon in the group of bands like Porcupine Tree. On the other hand, Mastodon could be seen as the unofficial leaders of the Savannah/SCaD scene that birthed it. In either case, Mastodon is not “a bunch of pussies now.” The Lamb of God crowd may not dig it, but there are thousands of others that do.
Like all Mastodon albums, I bought my copy on LP. Unfortunately, I haven’t done the vinyl/MP3 rip yet (that’s a project for this weekend). I did find a promo copy online but it’s missing the album’s last song “The Last Baron.” I apologize for posting an incomplete album and I’ll repost the corrected link in a timely manner. In the meantime, please enjoy most of Crack the Skye.
Also, while we're sort of on the subject, how about a hand for Mr. Paul Romano and all the awesome artwork he's done over the years; even that Trivium album cover. Click here for art radness.
Mastodon- Crack the Skye
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