I Am Listening To Every Mastodon Album In Chronological Order

[duzie]

Hey all:
What excels in you opinion the most about this band ?
Drums
Bass
Guitar
Vocals
Song writing
Listening for the first time today

 

[JiveTurkey]

Hey all:
What excels in you opinion the most about this band ?
Drums
Bass
Guitar
Vocals
Song writing
Listening for the first time today

Yes

 

[Warmart]

Yes

For me, it's RIFFAGE. But all the above too

 

[JiveTurkey]

For me, it's RIFFAGE. But all the above too

That's the thing. I LOVE the riffs. I LOVE the drumming. I LOVE the songwriting as well as the array of vocals. I can't choose just one thing

 

[DrewJD82]

Nope, but I just put it on.

AND Silverburst LP Custom??? Yeah, guess I've been living under a rock. (I've owned mine since 1982-ish. Thought I knew every all the major players who used that guitar, but I didn't.)

Pfffft, I posted my cover of it in our FAS PM like a year ago. Shows how much you pay attention to me!!! We’re going to bring this up with our counselor tonight!

 

[TSJMajesty]

Pfffft, I posted my cover of it in our FAS PM like a year ago. Shows how much you pay attention to me!!! We’re going to bring this up with our counselor tonight!

Well maybe I'd pay more attention if you weren't playing guitar ALL THE FUCKING TIME!

 

[DrewJD82]

That's the thing. I LOVE the riffs. I LOVE the drumming. I LOVE the songwriting as well as the array of vocals. I can't choose just one thing

So much this. Like I said in my first post, I didn’t give a sh*t about the vocals until Crack The Skye but man, those hook me in so much with their output since CTS. Hooks for f*cking days. Riffs galore, from sludgy riffs to proggy riffs to straight chugga chugga riffs to chicken pickin’ licks, solos that hark back to the 70’s with some originality thrown in and crazy ass drumming thrown in underneath it all. Hell, even the bass parts, while not always standing out, the tones lend themselves to the songs considerably.

Troy said it best himself, something along the lines of the bass not playing a leading role in the band, but filling in all the sound and bringing the doom when the doom needs to be brought. Now they’ve got a live synth player which is certainly welcomed, they had a guy playing synths on the CTS tour as well. It’s become such a huge part of their albums it was a matter of time unless they wanted to start playing to tracks. I know Brann uses a Tama Rhythm Watch (big metronome) to start the songs off live but after that they’re on their own. Bill used to trigger samples from a Digitech pedal and Brann would have to play to the samples, now they just got a dude doing it all live.

 

[TubeStack]

I got super into them when Crack The Skye came out. Still love and listen to that album, but haven't followed everything after that, just bits and pieces. I did like some of the more streamlined stuff, too.

Sometimes I find the arrangements/mixes a bit dense and would like more space. But that is being nit-picky. Really the only modern-ish metal band I've gotten into in a long time. Super creative, for sure.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

big fan of mastodon and crack the skye is my favourite of their albums, but I enjoy everything they’ve done. I love how they sound like the 80’s never happened.

met them on one of their first UK tours supporting high on fire when I was about 15 and they were asking where to get some weed. Nuts how big they got in the year or 2 after that.

 

[DrewJD82]

I’ve met everyone in the band aside from Brent, who I’m not sure I’d want to meet out of fear of catching him on an off-day.

Brann I first met in Boston on the CTS tour, he was standing by the merch booth and looked like he was going to fall over he was so tired. We shot the sh*t for a minute or two but I was way too early in my fandom to have much to say. A year later I met him at NAMM, he was walking through the Ibanez booth and I bumped into him. My ex and I stood there and talked to him for like 15 minutes, we hit that awkward spot of not having anything more to say so I said “Thanks for taking the time to chat, man! I’m sure you’ve got places to be” and he goes “Nope, I’m just hangin’ out“ and continued to stand there.

I was a smoker back then and was on the same smoking schedule as Troy, after the 3rd or 4th smoke break together we’d just stand outside and talk about NAMM and the people, barely talked about Mastodon much. I probably smoked a pack with that guy over the weekend.

Bill I met on the last day, the place was clearing out and he was looking at some cheap toy/beginner guitars. I jokingly said “You looking for a new endorsement?” and he goes, “Nah, I’m with Gibson” without even looking at me. When I started laughing he looked and realized I wasn’t a vendor but a regular dude and he brightened up a bit. I think we actually got ushered out of the Expo center and walked out together just shooting the sh*t about guitars and bands but it was a walk-and-talk kinda thing, not as in depth as I got with Brann or Troy. All really good dudes, though.

 

[la szum]

The Mastodon love and appreciation here is making me happy.

 

[la szum]

One of my favourite things about Mastodon is the unconventional guitar harmonies. This is not your Dad's Iron Maiden.
They just have this cool way of voicing those harmonies, and include just the right amount of dissonance to make it
really interesting, and not cliched or stereotypically "Metal."

 

[la szum]

Such a great song. Can hear a lot in this early tune that would become signature elements of the Mastodon style.

Gritty/not so clean arpeggiated chords. Really cool melody and early hints of those vocal harmonies.

 

[DrewJD82]

Such a great song. Can hear a lot in this early tune that would become signature elements of the Mastodon style.

Gritty/not so clean arpeggiated chords. Really cool melody and early hints of those vocal harmonies.

This time next week I’ll be recovering from the Mastodon/Gojira show!!! Super, super stoked for this as I haven’t had the chance to see Mastodon headlining since Crack The Skye, but especially for the Hushed And Grimm tour. I’ve been avoiding recent YouTube vids to keep the setlist a surprise.

 

[la szum]

New record deal = massive leap forward in Production Quality.


So F'ing Good!

 

[JiveTurkey]

This and the QR thread has inspired me to try a similar challenge. Band that came up on my radar is Overkill who just released a damn good album. Problem is; they have 20 albums now. I'm not listening to that many albums

 

[MirrorProfiles]

love how this song is kind of a precursor to crack the skye:

 

[la szum]

This and the QR thread has inspired me to try a similar challenge. Band that came up on my radar is Overkill who just released a damn good album. Problem is; they have 20 albums now. I'm not listening to that many albums

Haha! I listened to that new Overkill a few times already. Really fucking good!

And yeah, hard to choose/find a band with a nice discography that
is not 20+ albums long.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Haha! I listened to that new Overkill a few times already. Really f*****g good!

And yeah, hard to choose/find a band with a nice discography that
is not 20+ albums long.

I really liked up through Years of Decay but I fell off HARD with those guys for whatever reason? I liked Ironbound when they "came back" but then fell right back off on that next album

 

[Stone]

I like CTS very much, great song writing and great riffage for sure