MASTODON: STILL ON DRUGS

It’s my understanding that Mastodon’s Blood Mountain was a concept album much like Leviathan was. I say “it’s my understanding” because I have no fucking idea what they were going on about. I mean, I get that they were looking for crystal skulls and yadda yadda, but once you get into that whole Lord of the Rings made up creatures and rules I don’t understand territory, you lose me.

It doesn’t look like I’ll have an easier time understanding the band’s new album, Crack the Skye. In between bong rips, drummer Brann Dailor recently hinted at some of this latest offering’s “story” in an interview with The Quietus:

“Yeah, there’s a story which goes from start to end. And there is Tsarist Russia in there and that was picked because ever since the first record we’ve wanted to do something about this period and their art aesthetics, with the black lacquer boxes and that look was something we were going for. From there, you take elements of that, and it’s multi-dimensional and it goes into outer space and it’s about the ether and deals with astral travel, out-of-body experiences and deals with Stephen Hawking’s theories on wormholes. But I think one of the cool things about our band is that we will leave it ambiguously for the listener to dive into the lyrics themselves and maybe come to their own conclusions and form a little movie that plays in their heads.”

So, to review: the story of Crack the Skye will be something about Tsarist Russia and then they go into outer space and other dimensions in what may or may not be an out of body experience or something about being stuck in a wormhole as described by a brilliant crippled theoretical physicist? Remember when this band used to write about, y’know, killer whales and shit?

Note to Vince: we’re gonna need to smoke way more weed than usual before listening to this album. But the good news is, if we get really, really, really high, Brann Dailor says a little movie might play in our heads. Bitchin’.

-AR

[via Blabbermouth]