Mastodon/ Crack The Skye/ Relapse/ 2009

A good friend told me recently that “Mastodon is too metal for non-metalheads, and not metal enough for metalheads,” and I think that this sentiment points us toward the true function of the band. Mastodon systematically deconstructs any stable understanding of “metal” we can create.

Metal, as a genre, is plagued by categorization; multiple and varied sub-definitions spawn almost infinitely. Hardcore, grind, stoner, death, black, fantasy, doom, funeral doom, and progressive are all possible prefixes for metal. The thing that makes Mastodon fascinating is how seamlessly they integrate elements from all of the above categories to produce something that is always simultaneously too metal and not metal enough. Within a span of one minute, in any given song, Mastodon can make you weep or melt your face off, and they don’t care which.

Crack the Skye, Mastodon’s most recent exercise in face melting, is their most perplexing, beautiful, haunting, and brutal opus. During the anthemic climax of the titular track, “Crack the Skye,” Troy Sanders wails “Deep within this endless void/ searching for a sign…Weight of worlds is on your shoulders/ hear the voice of gold.” These words pull us into the complex concept behind the album’s construction and the true influence of Mastodon on metal: severing the signified from the signifiers, and leaving the world and reason behind to be carried into realms between time and space. Here we encounter demons, Rasputin, a Tsarina, the devil himself, and all of the dark places in our very souls. The currency here is golden souls and mystical transformation, and we watch as our understanding of the world around us falls crumbling to the ground. Mastodon have already proven their ability to craft delicately brutal concept albums, from Leviathan (a retelling of Moby Dick) to Blood Moutain (epic battles with monstrous intergalactic alien beings), but Skye finds them more deftly creating a musical setting that complements their intellectual conceptions.

Mastodon defies all conventional modes of metal composition, juxtaposing sailing parallel guitar arpeggios (in major keys) against growling yelps (helped of course by Scott Kelly of Neurosis fame) and primal drums. The construction of overarching atmosphere in the composition of Skye surpasses their previous albums, and Mastodon is able here to literally transport us into the world they create, forcing us to forget that we are listening to five scruffy dudes playing instruments. Each song is structured individually, adapting and responding to each new theme presented, giving us the difficult task of keeping up with rapid harmonic, thematic, and structural shifts.

Skye does what all other Mastodon albums have strived to do: force controlled immersion into a fantastical world that stretches our ability to negotiate our relationships with ourselves and the world around us. As we are pushed into the “realm of mystic majesty” Mastodon orchestrates a beautiful symphony of crushing breakdowns and spectral melodies, disrupting our ability to pin down their conceptual project, and providing us with a fully engrossing listen.

- CHAYNES