Allow me to rant for a minute on just why Mastodon belongs to the cream of the crop of today's metal world.
In the brilliant video interview below Brent and Troy and mention that they tried to achieve something timeless with the new album Crack The Skye (only five days left, fuckers!), and boy did they achieve it.
There's a dozen or so bands around today that have that timeless quality, as well as being grounded, organic and having a lot of heart and honesty.
Apart from Mastodon there's High On Fire, Boris, Cult Of Luna, Mono, Isis, Big Business, The Mars Volta, Opeth, Mogwai, Capricorns, Pelican, Kylesa and a handful of others that people will still listen to in 2039. In fact, their fanbase will probably be much larger then than today.
Long after they're split up new kids will discover them and get their heads blown off, just like kids today backtrack and discover Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Judas Priest etc.
A lot of these bands today, Every Time I Die, God Forbid, Throwdown, Trivium, Avenged Sevenfold, Unearth, Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, Chimaira, Lamb Of God, Shadows Fall and so on are too cold, too distant, too removed emotionally to have any sort of staying power. Some of them may be fine for the moment, but their music won't last.
I can't imagine 30 or 40 years from now some pimple faced 14 year-old will stumble upon a dusty old Killswitch Engage record, put it on for the first time and go "Woah! What the hell is this?! This rules!" but I can easily imagine that happening with a Mastodon record or an Isis record.
Alright, that's my $0.02, now watch this great interview:
(mp3) Mastodon - Hail to fire
Available on 9 Song Demo (2000)
3 comments:
Great post and finally someone who explains properly why I can't stand Lamb of God.
I saw High on Fire a couple months ago and my guitar player, who didn't care for them, suddenly 'got it'. Very much looking forward to Kylesa, they're coming to my town soon too.
btw Opeth headlined that show (Nachtmystium was the other band on that tour) and I finally enjoyed a live Opeth show. I still only like the Ghost Reveries album from that band. But what a fucking record! Ak is a genius, he just doesn't know when to reel it in for my tastes.
Didn't get into Mastodon when they came out but I guess with the new album it's time to try them again. One of the reasons people have a hard time with it is the density of the ideas in these songs; even a joke band like Horse The Band pulls out some surprisingly dense stuff here and there (although they do seem like soiled panty-sniffers.)
For people who don't PLAY music, it can be a real chore to listen enough times for that spark to sink in.
Even better, I just saw Kylesa is coming with Mastodon & Intronaut. Like Father Fucking Xmas. Metal is finally moved into the 21st century!
Cool beans.
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