Black Friday: Mastodon—metalhead tested, hipster approved

Friday, March 20th, 2009 | musiX, pdX

Metal, for the most part, sticks to its own—that is, most metal is listened to by mostly metalheads. Of course, you have your Black Albums, which everyone and their mother owns … including my mother.

Mastodon is a peculiar animal. A great American metal band that does as it pleases (no “Nothing Else Matters” here), and still appeals to a wide audience—not necessarily soccer moms and jocks, but a band that the hippest of hipsters can, and will, admit to liking. I don’t know why that is.

The Athens, Ga. four-piece will release its new album Crack the Skye next week (March 24), and by all accounts it’s a monster—a festering ball of fury that blends sludge with prog (a 13-minute opus called “The Last Baron”) and classic metal with classic rock. If Mastodon can sonically top their previous records—Leviathan and Blood Mountain—I don’t know where they go from here.

The band will play the record in its entirety on their upcoming tour, which will bring them to Portland’s Hawthorne Theatre on April 21. I can picture the line snaking around the block already—black-clad metal kids co-mingling with horn-rimmed cool kids. All part of Mastodon’s mission for world peace.

Video for Mastadon’s “Divinations” from Crack the Skye

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