Excelsior

Ten years ago in Atlanta, Georgia, one of today's most innovative heavy metal bands was formed. Mastodon is a Grammy-nominated heavy metal quartet that has helped to prove metal an art form with every album released. With their elaborate progressive metal sound, each musician's mastery of his instrument, and the band's larger-than-life conceptual albums, they are a force to be reckoned with in today's music scene.

This month they've released their fourth album, Crack the Skye. The band, comprised of Brann Dailor, Brent Hinds, Bill Kelliher and Troy Sanders, enlisted the help of heavyweight producer Brendan O'Brien to produce the album. O'Brien has an extensive and impressive resume, having produced albums for Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, AC/DC, and countless others. Through O' Brien's production, Mastodon has put together their most progressive and interesting album yet. With just seven songs providing about fifty minutes of listening time, Crack the Skye is short but sweet and provides the listener with an auditory journey rather than a simple collection of songs.

Crack the Skye is every bit as epic as its predecessors. The album was put together while Hinds, the guitarist and one of two lead vocalists in the band, was recovering from a serious head injury sustained in a drunken altercation at the 2007 VMAs. According to an interview with Kelliher, the album centers around an out-of-body experience while also delving into the spiritual realm and discussing astral travel, Stephen Hawking's theories, and wormholes. Their sound has evolved into a much more eclectic one, pulling inspiration from all over the board and fusing it all together to make an elaborate but not overworked album.

The first track of the album, "Oblivion," sets the stage with a steady buildup and some beautiful guitar work towards the end of the song. The vocal harmonies in this track last throughout the album and help add great richness to the entire project.

"Divinations" starts off shining a spotlight on an instrument not usually associated with metal. If you guessed banjo, you guessed right. It's an unpredictable yet bold move that could have easily gone awry. It works well within the intro of the song and provides an eerie feeling to the beginning of the track, which quickly works its way into sinister. This is the shortest track on the album but definitely one of the strongest.

"Quintessence" juxtaposes a very psychedelic, dreamlike sound with deeper, heavier sound that the band is known for. This track is another that benefits greatly from the vocals, as they blend incredibly well with the softer side of the song.

The fourth track on the album is "The Czar," which is separated into four sections: Usurper, Escape, Martyr and Spiral. If we think of the album in terms of mathematical sets, The Czar would be the universal set while Usurper, Escape, Martyr and Spiral would be musical subsets within it. See? Math can be fun! The song starts off serenely, with audible Eastern influences, and creates a definite mood with in each portion of its eleven-minute journey. It's a complex treat of mythic proportions.

"Ghost of Karelia" brings us into an intense, dark blend of metal, similar to what one might imagine as the battle song of a ghostly entity who likes to rock. The lyrics, like much of Mastodon's work, are masterfully written and provide added substance to the song; the band offers not just a musical journey, but an actual story within each track.

The title track is one of the best songs of the album. "Crack the Skye" is a creepy, with anxiety that permeates throughout the track. Apparently, heavy metal thunder has cracked the sky, and Mastodon is raining incredible rock and roll on the ears of its fans.

The closing track, "The Last Baron," is thirteen minutes long but worth every moment you'll spend listening to it. The album goes out with a bang. Mastodon has mastered the turning of songs into epics, and this song is a great example of both that and the new sound that the band's been molding for three years since its 2006 album, Blood Mountain.

With their fourth album, Mastodon took a chance in altering their sound, a choice that has paid off. Crack the Skye is a relentless rock and roll opera, full of intrigue, drama and substance. Each song fades into the next in an incredibly cohesive and well-planned way. This is smart, thoughtful, grown-up metal for the masses. At just fifty minutes long, the album will have metal heads praying for more and provide newcomers with a lush landscape of sound to start them off right.

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