SO WHAT DO WE THINK OF THE VOCALS ON THE NEW MASTODON LIVE ALBUM?

When we got wind of the fact that Mastodon are getting ready to release a live album, Live at the Aragon, next month, one of our — well, maybe really just my — biggest concerns was the vocals. When I’ve heard Mastodon play Crack the Skye material live, the vocals have sounded pretty atrocious, and since Aragon features a performance of that album in its entirety, well, this fact might cause problems when trying to enjoy the live release.

Now the band has unveiled a clip from this upcoming CD/DVD set, of the song “Oblivion.” To the band’s credit, they vocals aren’t as bad as any of the times I’ve seen this song played live, and they don’t seem to have done any touch-ups in the studio the way a lot of other bands do. Not so much to their credit, the vocals are still lousy enough that I can’t imagine myself ever sitting around and listening to this thing in its entirety. I mean, if I was at a karaoke bar with some friends and one of them did this good a job with the song, I’d be like, “Oh, hey, that was pretty cool!” But this ain’t no karaoke version of the song.

What do you guys think? Is that an unacceptable vocal performance, or am I overreacting?

Live at the Aragon comes out March 15 on Reprise.

-AR