Mastodon - Crack The Skye
May 3 2009 at 09:01:20 PM
Testes. Testes. One. Two. We have a pair. There is a special place in a hell of my own construction for bands like Mastodon and the recent incarnations of Ulver and Enslaved. I can think of few things worse than technique masquerading as music; reworkings of late Floyd, ELP, King Crimson and early Genesis masquerading as bona fides innovation; plastic, histrionic lyrics masquerading as wholly emotive, “mature,” and sincere vox. Mastodon purports to craft music about life and hardships, yet sounds so infinitely far from any modicum of the day-to-day they may as well be soundtracking digital cartoons, soap opera, advertisements for energy drinks, pheromone enhanced perfume and cologne, fat-free fat. To wit: I never feel I am listening to men making music when I listen to Mastodon. The lyrics are always so far from any feelings I’ve felt. The guitar, bass, and drums unlike anything I’ve heard strummed, picked, or pounded. Ultimately it comes off as crude trick: A cheap slight-of-hand made possible with studio airbrushing, extensive overdubs, weaponized reverb.
Crack in the Skye is Mastodon’s
Rosemary’s Baby of sorts, inhabiting an unassuming back catalog of classic rock radio filler, which hosts the parasite for seven tracks and births one of the most soulless and corrupt artifacts ever engineered. Nearly 20 years ago, John Zorn’s Naked City assembled a cadre of sonic warriors and sought to raze preconceptions about compositional limitations by composing “songs” that woke shrieking and shaking apoplectic, tearing prejudicially through Hardcore, Grindcore, Jazz, Country/Western, Surf, Garage, and incidental soundtrack music. The music media’s failing, of course, was seeing/hearing Naked City as Jazz, and not the admittedly empty punchline it was brought up to be. Zorn, ever the comedic composer, straddled high and low with preternatural ease while “serious music writers” puzzled over the man who was never a mystery in the first place, clad in Nike cross-trainers, army surplus and FUCK YOU t-shirt.
Naked City’s axeman, Bill Frisell, ever the cornball’s cornball, would undoubtedly swoon over Hinds and Kelliher’s guitar work. It is the labyrinthine, learned, over-practiced plastic he is wont to ape terrifically. Credit Hinds and Kelliher for rendering silly and toothless riffs in ways that sound simultaneously as big tent Vegas acrobat bit and quick ringtone fodder for “wayward” adolescents. Dailor’s drumming responds in kind, a monkey crashing about beat-for-beat with the kind of boundless alacrity demonstrated en masse via YouTube play-along-with-the-record suburban percussionists malnourished from a steady diet of Peart and Ulrich.
Crack the Skye’s most intolerable feature is its vocals, which serve a perfect vehicle for lyrics that match the recording’s most egregious and pointless excesses. Two songs that surpass the 10-minute barrier sounds the siren for “ambition” and gets folks talking endlessly about all things “epic” and “prog” and “mature.” “The Czar” clocks in at 10 minutes 54 seconds and conjures quick image of two fat-panted, tribal-tatted mallrats annoying the Guitar Center staff with glass-jawed takes on Steve Howe’s heavyweight prattle. “Spiraling up through the crack in the sky / Leaving material world behind / I see your face in constellations / The martyr is ending his life for mine.” “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” it ain’t. We can only hope the lyrics will be explained in time as a mixture of Gnostic thought, Dianetics and bad haircuts.
A friend once likened Zorn’s Naked City to an endless radio dial roll; a bored-stiff stiff going from station to station, refusing to settle on one song as all of it refused to offer anything of inherent artistic worth. Mastodon partakes in the self-same exercise. The only difference here is they truly think what they do is “great” and “new” when it’s really no better than the ephemeral and nihilistic blah that continues to clog FM airwaves.
Crack the Skye is not “prog” or “emo.” It’s not “original” or “mature” and certainly never was “Metal” for that matter. It’s simply just bad. OK, listeners? First caller receives a pair of passes to the first day of the rest of their life. Pick up the phone. Dial that number. And don’t turn that radio dial…
[Stewart Voegtlin]
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http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/crack_the_skye_finds_mastodon_on_the_haunt/Content?oid=742524
Here you go:
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=119443
That's good comedy.
The songs are both nebulous and grand, intertwining with allegory and real-life tragedy. Yet, the album remains open to interpretation, depending on what each listener brings along for the headlong dive into the wormhole.
There have been a lot of comments complaining about the hype and press surrounding this album, of which this piece is one more addition, regardless of being negative. You all act as if there's some lack of people criticizing this album when every member of the underground police has been shitting on this band for years. Mastodon don't write their own reviews and bios, they just play music. If what they play catches the public's ear then it's more of an indictment of the current artistic climate than of four dudes doing something that you don't even have to take notice of if you don't go out of your way to.
Candlemass make an unnecessary and forgettable album and we get a list of reasons why it might be worth a download. Mastodon make an unnecessary and forgettable album and get crucified.
Sorry for the drunken rant. Back to Townes Van Zandt.
Standards, man, standards.
Your plea for having "standards" razes your "can't-we-all-just-get-along" argument. You see, one can't beg for critical relativism, and suggest critique of art has no meaning if the ones producing the art are merely "enjoying themselves," and then turn around and deride a band like Testament for doing exactly the same thing. Yeah, you sound kinda drunk.
So, you understand your problem with logic now, right? It's awful, Eric. But comparing Mastodon to Maiden and Priest... A crime... And for its commission I sentence you to 999 years on staff at Oaken Throne, where big, important bands have their balls shined on a regular basis and critical reviews have no place.
Love,
Voegtlin
P.S. DePalma wrote the Candlemass review.
I just noticed:
"Checking to see that *your* human, please answer the math problem below."
Bad grammar. :(