During the runup to Metal Month II I asked you guys to throw any albums my way you wanted to see me review. You responded in your ... um ... you responded --- well, some of you did --- and those albums will now be reviewed in this section. As I promised, I reviewed them in the order I received them, and this is also now how I will present them here.
Some people suggested more than one album. In those cases, that person's second (or in some cases, third) choice was relegated to the end of the line, after all the others to be reviewed. So if you asked me to listen to two or more albums and only see one here, don't despair: I got to it, and will post it, but after everyone else has had a chance. Fair? Tough.
This was the very first suggestion, and so it's the first one being posted here.
Blood mountain --- Mastodon --- 2006 (Reprise)
Suggested by Frownland
Well, Frownland was first in with his request, and so it's thanks to him for the first recommendation. I say thanks because whether or not I end up liking it, he took the time to make the suggestion, and that deserves my gratitude. If nobody had suggested albums I would not even have this section, so thanks to all. But now we take a look at an album by a band who have been around since just before the turn of the millennium, and who within that time have produced six albums, of which this is the fourth. They have a new one out this year, and depending on how this goes I may see what that's like in the “Freshly Forged” section later. Right now though, it's 2006 and I am still working in my job of at this point twenty-six years, have a little more hair and have never even heard of Music Banter. The new millennium is six years old and the fear of Y2K is now a matter to laugh at and be embarrassed by, and the horror of 9/11 is very slowly fading, though never forgotten.
We open on “The wolf is loose”, a hard and tough track with a gutteral vocal from Troy Sanders but with some very acceptable backing vocals. It's fast and frenetic; there's no easing yourself into this album! Reading up on it, I see it's a concept album, following the progress of a character up the Blood Mountain atop which he wishes to place a crystal skull, for some reason: something to do with freeing his mind and moving on to the next stage of evolution, it says here. In fact, the next song , which features Scott Kelly of Neurosis guesting on the vocals, is called “Crystal skull” and I must admit I don't see a huge division between it and the previous, though often that's the way with concept albums. This is a little more of a boogie in some ways, some very good guitar work from Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher, and like most of the tracks on the album it's quite short, only three minutes.
“Sleeping giant” is one of the longer ones, and begins with an extended instrumental that's quite progressive rock really. Although the vocals here are less harsh --- could be one of the others singing, as they seem to share vocal duties --- they're still hard to make out, but the music is pretty great. “Capilliarian crest” sees the return of the original vocals from the opening track and move along at a faster pace, almost shades of Death Metal in places. “Circle of cysquatch” (a cysquatch is apparently a Sasquatch wit one eye who's capable of seeing the future) continues the sort of breathless, death/thrash format of the previous song though with slightly clearer vocals, but it's all a little too raw for my sensibilities, and I say that having listened to, at the time of writing, the entire Slayer catalogue! Yeah, but of choice I would, so far, not listen to this. There's some sort of weird vocoder effect that quite honestly sounds like the guy is belching the vocal. Weird. Which kind of describes this album up to this point. There are two instrumentals on the album, the first of which is “Bladecatcher”, played on a nice picked guitar in a sort of folky/prog style --- no it's not. Started that way then exploded on fast electric guitar and seems to involve some sort of vocals taped and run at top speed, or some sample or something. Not what I'd have expected from a track labelled “instrumental”. Maybe the last half of that word.
Not going well so far, Frown my man! I'm tempted to stop listening here, but we're only halfway through and I don't do that; when I say I'll listen to something I do it. Oh god damn it, I forgot I promised to give Cryptopsy a listen for The Batlord! May God have mercy upon my soul! Oh well, that's in the future for now, but at times I must admit I think I might be better listening to them than Mastodon. I really hated “Bladecatcher”, and though “The colony of birchmen” is said to be an homage to Genesis's “The colony of slippermen” off “The lamb lies down on Broadway”, I don't see it. Or hear it. But at least it's listenable. Mostly. Got a decent beat to it and the vocals aren't too bad, another guest performance this time by QOTSA's Josh Homme. Let's check out the lyric: no, still see nothing to connect this with the Genesis song. Moving on..
There's more of a marching style beat to “Hunters of the sky”, then it abruptly stops for a second and breaks into another superfast tempo with more annoying screamed vocals and guitars that really should be kept on a leash if they're out in public! I just find it so hard to make out any of the words here that it detracts from my enjoyment of the album, but given that I don't think much of the music either, it doesn't really matter in the end. There's so far nothing here I'd listen to again of choice. The guitars still haven't learned to behave as they usher in “Hand of stone”, with at least slightly more recognisable (though no prettier) vocals, but with three tracks to go I'm now just holding out till this ends, as it's become, literally, worse than listening to Slayer. At least I got used to them, and even got to like them a little. This I just hate and will never listen to again.
I don't know if it's going to last or not, but “This mortal soil” begins with some nice gentle guitar and may have fooled me into thinking it's going to be a ballad. Even if it doesn't stay that way, a minute or so of this is a nice break from the constant assault of punching guitars and kicking drums, which is wearing me out worse than listening to “Undisputed attitude”! The vocal is recognisable and thus far the song has remained relatively slow and laidback, and we're halfway through the song at this point. Well, it ended and resisted the temptation to kick up, so if I had to choose a favourite --- or, let's say, least hated --- track from this album i guess it would be that. “Siberian divide” brings in The Mars Volta's Cedric Bixler-Zavala on vocals, but it doesn't make that much difference to me; just sounds pretty much like everything else on this album. Don't really like any of it.
The closer is the second instrumental, (well, it's biilled as such but there are kind of drunken vocals running throughout most of it) and though “Pendulous skin” runs for officially just over twenty-two f
ucking minutes (!) most of that is silence, with a message inserted from Homme, a kind of band in-joke. I don't need to hear that, and I've never understood the idiotic process of putting in a ton of silence that extends a track which then has a tiny little snippet at the end. It's frustrating, when you think you're getting a really long, epic track and find you have been cheated. Kansas, Robbie Williams, even my prog gods Marillion have done it, and it boils my blood every time. Luckily, on this album I don't
want – couldn't survive through --- a twenty-plus minute track, so I'm prepared to suffer five minutes that includes keyboard contribution from Isiah “Ikey” Owens, again of The Mars Volta, which is relaxing and closes the album well, possibly a second track I might listen to, if I had to, but overall this album bombed bigtime for me. Sorry Frownland: better luck next time, my friend!
TRACKLISTING
The wolf is loose
Crystal skull
Sleeping giant
Capilliarian crest
Circle of cysquatch
Bladecatcher
The colony of birchmen
Hunters of the sky
Hand of stone
This mortal soil
Siberian divide
Pendulous skin
Yeah, this is definitely not for me. It's a while since I suffered a sense of just gritting my teeth and hoping the album would end at some point, but that's exactly what I felt here. From the moment it began I had reservations, and they never really went away. One or two half-decent tracks aside, there's nothing on this album I want to revisit, and I guess that new album I was talking about will just languish on my hard disk now. I really don't want to experience Mastodon again. Next!
