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Mastodon "The Hunter" 9/27

The Hunter...Yea or Nay

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rbV5

rbV5

Lifer
Mastodon's new album "The Hunter" is now here!

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e55cc_mast2011.jpeg

I burned out my eyes
I cut off my tongue
I sealed them with all of the silver
And now I have none
You killed the life
You took the diamond
You killed the vine
Death of the...

Black Tongue

Curl Of The Burl

Spectrelight

Track by Track Review
 
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OK, I've listened to the Album 3 times through. I've heard the songs previousy released on youtube, but wanted to listen to all the songs together to get a feel for them.

First thing I noticed right away is that the whole album itself is slickly polished in EVERY respect...not exactly a good thing. Every song is formatted for radio airplay, and every song is a single....goodbye concept album, well..OK.

"Creature Lives" is kind of a throw-back to early Syd Barret fronted Pink Floyd like...and it doesn't work for me at all. In fact, the first couple of listenings, the vocals all seems very sanitized, and "nice", to me. The vocals for Curl of the Burl are a good example of their new "sound"

but....

There are more than a few moments for sure. Overall, the album itself is nice, a little too nice for Mastodon in my opinion, but it is a nice album, very diverse and it covers alot of ground. Gone are epic, awesome building songs like "The Czar" replaced with an "Stadium Arcadium" like release full of radio-friendly" tunes like "All the Heavy Lifting"

Brann Dailor's drumming stands out throughout the album, Scott Kelly brings his vocals in Spectrelight, the musicsianship is top-notch. The songs themselves sound familiar, and grow on you.
 
I'm going to pick this up, haven't yet. Crack the Skye is one of my favorite albums ever. I like their older stuff too, but the melodic, dark, Rasputin-esque-quality around that whole album is just on a different level of awesome.

Hopefully this one stands up too.
 
From my other thread. 😀

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I am liking the new album for the most part. I agree that it is a large step toward radio-friendliness, but this tends to be the normal progression of most bands. It's hard to keep raging against the machine when you're pushing 40 with kids.
 
rbV5 said:
OK, I've listened to the Album 3 times through. I've heard the songs previousy released on youtube, but wanted to listen to all the songs together to get a feel for them.

First thing I noticed right away is that the whole album itself is slickly polished in EVERY respect...not exactly a good thing. Every song is formatted for radio airplay, and every song is a single....goodbye concept album, well..OK.

"Creature Lives" is kind of a throw-back to early Syd Barret fronted Pink Floyd like...and it doesn't work for me at all. In fact, the first couple of listenings, the vocals all seems very sanitized, and "nice", to me. The vocals for Curl of the Burl are a good example of their new "sound"

but....

There are more than a few moments for sure. Overall, the album itself is nice, a little too nice for Mastodon in my opinion, but it is a nice album, very diverse and it covers alot of ground. Gone are epic, awesome building songs like "The Czar" replaced with an "Stadium Arcadium" like release full of radio-friendly" tunes like "All the Heavy Lifting"

Brann Dailor's drumming stands out throughout the album, Scott Kelly brings his vocals in Spectrelight, the musicsianship is top-notch. The songs themselves sound familiar, and grow on you.
Click to expand...

Did you just compare Mastodon to RHCP?

I really want to like them, and I can in small doses, but I have a hard time getting into bands like them, and [yes I'm doing some more whining about it] couple that with the modern compression makes it really difficult to listen to and really enjoy. Mastodon has fared better than most, although I'm far from a die hard fan (obviously since I was no aware of them having a new album out).
 
Did you just compare Mastodon to RHCP?
Click to expand...

IMO, "Stadium Arcadium" is to RHCP what "The Hunter" is for Mastodon. In the end, The Hunter will likely become a huge hit, just like Stadium Arcadium was for RHCP. Alot of fans still like their early work however.
 
10/10

I picked up this album yesterday. I’ve listened to it all the way through probably 4 times now at work through my Superlux headphones+iPod, and IMO it’s at least on par with their masterpiece work Crack the Skye. It continues their logical progression toward a more polished and melody-driven sound. Much of what made Crack the Skye great continues here; melody-driven tracks + mostly sung (not screamed) vocals. The trademark darkly-themed progressions aren’t lost with this new polish, IMO it makes them better.

The producer clearly has made an effort to let Brann Drailor’s work on drums stand out, more so than on their other albums, and that’s a good thing. If there’s a better drummer doing more relevant work in rock I’m not sure who that would be. The guy plays like he’s from another planet; really incredible stuff.

I absolutely love this album. I was a casual fan of Mastodon before Crack the Skye, liking (not loving) their efforts up to that point. Since then they’ve really grabbed me, and I’m pretty much in awe of both Crack the Skye and now The Hunter. In a few more listens I might be leaning toward calling the latter as their finest work.

I work in a data center and will be rocking out to this all day while I run around fixing shit. It was all I could do to keep myself from breaking in to a dead run while listening to Dry Bone Valley (track 8) while coming back through the facility to my desk. I’ll have to save it for my run after work. 

Mastodon ftw!!!!!
 
Platypus said:
Huge, huge fan of the band, hugely let down by this release.
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Copy that.

It's like a bunch of leftover from Crack the Skye that didn't make the cut.

Crack the Skye was such a mind melting span of complexity that just "worked" as a beautifly cohesive experience. Hunter is like a bunch of leftover ideas, riffs, and tracks they couldn't find room for and made an album out of it.

The first two songs are good and then it's just a bunch of skip..skip...skip..skip...skip...eh ok...skip
 
Nice. I wouldn't at all be surprised to find fans of older Mastodon not be too stoked on this release...and we've already seen that here. Not only is their earlier stuff not as polished production-wise, the sound and general direction of the songs is pretty different.

I wonder if it's because Brent Hinds vowed to not smoke as much crack after the infamous altercation with the SOAD bass guy...
 
wheresmybacon said:
Nice. I wouldn't at all be surprised to find fans of older Mastodon not be too stoked on this release...and we've already seen that here. Not only is their earlier stuff not as polished production-wise, the sound and general direction of the songs is pretty different.
Click to expand...

Leviathan is one of my favorite albums. It just kicks a mountain of ass and is a visceral assault of energy. Blood Mountain was a *much more* radio friendly album other than a few goofball tracks and took them much more mainstream.

Then Crack the Skye came out and I hated it at first. Then I forced myself to listen to it a couple more times in it's entirety and it just grew, and grew and grew on me. It takes a lot of spins to really digest everything going on there. The structure of the songs, the huge sweeping range of emotions and music. The wild variety of character and instruments all come together into a beautifully chaotic album unlike anything I've really heard.

Then they follow up with Hunter that basically is a bunch of leftover soundbytes from CtS and try to make a full length album out of it. Some of the stuff almost feels like it's a mockery to the emotional album that CtS was. Maybe that's the point.

I don't know know...but I know I'm not a fan.
 
I haven't been able to get much into any of their stuff after the masterpiece that is Leviathan. Blood Mountain was ok, I only liked the first 4 of Crack the Skye
 
wheresmybacon said:
Nice. I wouldn't at all be surprised to find fans of older Mastodon not be too stoked on this release...and we've already seen that here. Not only is their earlier stuff not as polished production-wise, the sound and general direction of the songs is pretty different.

I wonder if it's because Brent Hinds vowed to not smoke as much crack after the infamous altercation with the SOAD bass guy...
Click to expand...


The new record is pretty simple musically, and heavy on production. Its the opposite of Crack the Skye, IMO, Mastodon's finest attempt as of now. Its more like Blood Montain, except the songs are much weaker.
 
rbV5 said:
The new record is pretty simple musically, and heavy on production. Its the opposite of Crack the Skye, IMO, Mastodon's finest attempt as of now. Its more like Blood Montain, except the songs are much weaker.
Click to expand...

Excellent summary.
 
darkswordsman17 said:
Did you just compare Mastodon to RHCP?

I really want to like them, and I can in small doses, but I have a hard time getting into bands like them, and [yes I'm doing some more whining about it] couple that with the modern compression makes it really difficult to listen to and really enjoy. Mastodon has fared better than most, although I'm far from a die hard fan (obviously since I was no aware of them having a new album out).
Click to expand...

I've taken to wearing earplugs when listening in the car to anything with heavy compression added. Makes life better...

2 - 12" subs in the trunk
4 sets of separates in the doors
 
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