Mastodon’s Crack the Skye

The last day of my junior year in college began uniquely: my suitemate Jeremy, mid-packing session, stopped his preparations to leave long enough to burst into my room and wake me up to tell me this: “Dude, I’ve listened to Crack the Skye like ninety five times this quarter. That’s over 100 hours.”

Yes, Jeremy. Yes, it is.

Later, I found that I, too had been blitzing the album ever since it’s late-March release. It could be because I was among the first people in the world to hear pieces of the album at last year’s Bonnaroo. I’ve actually listened to it more than I have any CD since Machine Head’s The Blackening in 2007. It should have come as no surprise, Crack the Skye is the most compulsively listenable Metal album I’ve heard since Metallica’s The Black Album in 1991. Mastodon have been following that particular band’s career path for quite some time now, releasing album after album of increasingly melodic and complex, but heavy metal with a knack for epic choruses. That said, I don’t see Crack the Skye matching The Black Album’s monstrous cultural and economic presence, despite the fact that the boys in Mastodon have mastered those epic choruses and polished them to a mirror shine.

Crack the Skye has more in common with Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin than any current band, or any of the band’s previous work: the songs are lush, dense, and long affairs that double as guitar heroics and lush psychedelic soundscapes. There’s a narrative present, some tripped-out story that involves Icarus, astral projection, wormholes, time travel, czarist Russia, ghosts, Rasputin, and drummer/singer Brann Dailor’s deceased sister Skye (get it? Good). Clearly that’s all a metaphor for personal experiences of the members of the band, and thus not really meant to be intelligible, just interesting. What’s crazy is that it almost makes sense in a waking dream logic sort of way, but the emotive dips of the album are more engaging.

Crack the Skye begins with a graceful downer in “Oblivion,” one of the album’s strongest tracks, and current radio single. The album gets more intense and depressing from there as “Oblivion”s mellow “Leaving you behind with my lonesome song/ Now I’m lost in Oblivion” chorus is blasted out of mind by the frantic first lines of “Divinations”: “It’s gone away/ It’s gone for good!” The lyrics overall impress, although the moronic “Letting go!” gang shouts in “Quintessensce” pull that track into mediocrity. Fortunately it’s the only stinker. At the literal halfway point, during the final section of “The Czar,” the sky itself does bend and crack in a moment of hopeful tranquility, “I see your face in constellations/ the martyr is ending his life for mine.” The second half of the album is a nearly seamless roller coaster of good old fashioned heavy rock.

The album vaults from electric to acoustic constantly, and there are no harsh vocals to be found: Mastodon’s three(!) vocalists have learned to harmonize like The Beach Boys, or at least replicated the effect with studio overdubs. The whole affair is very produced and polished, leaving a slightly unpleasant air of plasticity in the sound, but there are enough charming flaws to make the disc seem human and crafted, not designed by executives. The whole album functions on that push and pull with consumerism. These songs are bright, almost cheerful sounding, but the subject matter is too esoteric and twisted for radio play. Likewise, while the structures work on simple verse-chorus-verse, the song lengths are distinctly inaccessible. Crack the Skye appeals to a different kind of music fan, the kind of listener that’s willing to invest effort in not skipping ahead on their stereo or iPod and let the album communicate through sheer osmosis. Stoners, in short.

Mastodon seems to trust their demographic, and hope this album will be a worthy tribute to Dailor’s sister and much more. They weave together a grand total of three distinct epic choruses into a single, cohesive, thirteen minute whole on closer (and best cut) “The Last Baron,” masterfully. That song, and the album’s most memorable moment is a triumphant crescendo where guitarist/singer Brent Hinds’ normally limited voice explodes into “I guess they would say we could set this would ablaze!” He’s not just talking about the mysterious tragic hero’s alliance with Rasputin’s ghost and eventually victory over Satan (Yes, you read that right), he’s talking about the history Mastodon know they will make with Crack the Skye. They’ve already sold out a nationwide tour where they played the album front to back with video and special effects to help them tell its story, whatever that really is.

Point being, these guys are crazy. They were crazy enough to make this beautiful misfit of an album and give it their full support. Clearly, they love their deeply flawed masterpiece as much as Jeremy does. This comes highly recommended, with hallucinogenic appetizer if you want to follow the plot. For recommended samples, below are links to the “Oblivion” music video. It’s awesome, too.

A Guide to Summer Music Festivals

Summer’s here, and for those of us who forgot to get a job or internship, that means lots and lots of music festivals. Start the summer right with a trip to Bonnaroo (June 11^th – 14^th), an hour outside of Nashville. Bonnaroo’s line-up is pretty diverse, and with three stages and three tents, you’ll always have something to do. Pay homage to the Talking Heads by checking out David Byrne, despite his recent disappointing release.Ezra Furman from Ezra Furman and the Harpoons

Don’t miss Wilco (consistently solid live show), TV on the Radio, Elvis Costello, Andrew Bird (I’ve seen him a few times and he always puts on a great show. I saw him once on 4/20, and the guy next to me smoked a joint and received a very public hand job from his girlfriend before passing out in the crowd…less than halfway through Bird’s set.), Bon Iver (one of the few over-hyped indie bands that actually deserves it (unlike, say, Fleet Foxes…)), Neko Case, Jenny Lewis, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

You have plenty of time to recover and re-hydrate after Bonnaroo before your next mission, Milwaukee’s Summerfest Music Festival. If you can navigate the ridiculous Wisconsin highways (making a stop at Mars Cheese Castle, on I-94, OF COURSE), Summerfest offers eleven days of mostly sub-par music. If you have nothing better to do, feel free to assail your ears with Puddle of Mudd, Conor Oberst, Barenaked Ladies, Staind, Kid Rock (with Lynyrd Skynyrd!)

The few performances worth checking out: Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco, Spoon, Bob Dylan, No Doubt (nostalgia! you know you loved them in middle school…), Elvis Costello, G. Love, Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s

I wasn’t sure which category to put KISS in…your call.

If you’ve survived eleven days of shitty beer and (mostly) shitty music, paddleboat across Lake Michigan to the Double JJ Ranch in Rothbury, Michigan for the second annual Rothbury Festival (July 2-5). This environmentally sustainable festival notably offers The Dead, Bob Dylan, Girl Talk, Toots & the Maytals, G. Love, Willie Nelson, and Broken Social Scene. There are also some quality bluegrass bands to see, if you aren’t too busy wandering around looking for art installations in the forest.

Now, put on your skinny jeans and vintage Ray Bans and get back in your paddleboat for Chicago’s Pitchfork Music Festival (July 17-19). By far the cheapest of the festivals, Pitchfork is the perfect place to pretend you aren’t a hipster (FYI- you are). Highlights include Built to Spill, Yo La Tengo, the National, Beirut, Matt & Kim, Grizzly Bear, The Flaming Lips, Blitzen Trapper, and Vivian Girls. This is one of the most musically consistent festivals this summer—if you like some of these bands, you’ll probably enjoy most of them. (Except probably not Final Fantasy. Ick.) Even if they aren’t all easy to listen to, it’ll be interesting to gawk at everyone in the audience. The vegan-friendly fare doesn’t hurt, either. If short funds/attention span keeps you from the other festivals, go to this one.

If you haven’t had a hipster identity crisis after a few days at Pitchfork, drive up to Soo Pass Ranch in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota for the 10,000 Lakes Music Festival (July 22-25). Ignore the fact that Dave Matthews Band is headlining (unless you’re Jillian McLaughlin, in which case…I’m judging you) and appreciate the gorgeous campgrounds. If you only see one band, please let it be Cloud Cult. This festival wins big for having the most ridiculous band names performing: Elf Lettuce, Gypsy Lumberjacks, Trampled by Turtles, and Enchanted Ape, to name a few. Also it’d be fun to see Wilco again, because Jeff Tweedy might start to recognize you after going to all these festivals, and maybe you can eat popsicles together.

And finally we come to Lollapalooza (August 7-9), now permanently located in Chicago’s Grant Park, on Lake Michigan. Lollapalooza is more mainstream than Pitchfork, but has enough indie bands to satisfy even the pickiest Pitchfork kids. If you’ve missed them at the other festivals, now is your chance to catch Snoop Dogg, Andrew Bird, Bon Iver, TV on the Radio, Beastie Boys, Neko Case, Band of Horses, and Vampire Weekend. Lollapalooza has a huge number of acts that haven’t been on the festival circuit worth seeing, including Of Montreal, Lou Reed, Lykke Li, and Ezra Furman & the Harpoons (haven’t heard of them yet? Time to fix that!) With the flurry of awesome shows going on at Lollapalooza, it will be easy enough to ignore Depeche Mode, Tool, and the Killers.

Enjoy the acceptable-to-get-drunk-outside-and-dance-like-a-crazy-person season!

The Kosmo goes to Ogrefest

LANSING—Dive bars, rolling fields, not-so-virgin-forests, economically-segregated cities verging on bankruptcy–in almost every way a state both picturesque, yet bleak. Given that, it’s no surprise that Michigan is secretly a hotbed of underground heavy metal music. Historically, metal has been a genre of music found in the coastal regions of America (The 80’s San Fransisco Thrash scene, the 90’s Florida Death Metal scene), which might explain why so many of the quality bands found in the Midwest are still unsigned. That lack of label attention, however, has resulted in a tight-knit, independent scene whose yearly mecca is the annual Ogrefest concert held at Mac’s Bar in Lansing.

Mac’s Bar itself is a dive bar that feels like home, intimate and lovably grimy with a pulverizing sound system. The music on the jukebox and the low prices of specialty drinks like “Virgin’s Blood” send a clear message that this place is metal friendly, and good thing too—the locals need somewhere to bring the fury.

Last year’s Ogrefest was a revelation to me: not only was it the final performance of Detroit emotive melo-death legends Cursed Eternity, but it was a titanic set by Chicagoan joke-grind Mavin’s Maggot Twat. Needless to say, 2009 had a lot to live up to, but the greatly increased attendance showed that the routinely fantastic performances have lit a fire among Midwest metal heads. The growth also showed in the roster: this year’s fest had over twenty scheduled bands, and ran for fourteen hours.

My companions and I only managed to get there around six, hours into the show, due to flooding and power outages in the state. Those same outages caused the bands minor headaches, but even so almost every band ended and began on time, keeping the pace brisk and energetic.

The standout performances showed the untapped power of the familial local scene, as well as its diversity. Perhaps the most technically proficient band was Lansing instru-metal act Year 2000X, who played only metallic covers of classic videogame themes (their name is a reference to Megaman 2). The boys rocked out to rousing renditions of “The Contra Theme” and “Metal Gear,” with extended jams for solos—they are a homegrown Dragonforce, simultaneously more immersive and honest without the pretentious fretbord tactics Herman Li and crew overuse.

Blackened crust punks Wastelander kept things punishing and simple, sounding like Amebix and Bathory playing Motorhead songs, inciting enthusiastic responses from the audience in a festival full of bands with extreme technical merit like Cavalcade. Wastelander proves that good songwriting trumps solo ability every time.

“Thrash, Kill, Destroy”Ohio band Hammerhoarde play a very European style of Viking-influenced folk metal, sounding a bit like Turisas and Amon Amarth through lo-fi stereo speakers. Hammerhoarde are popular with the ladies—the whole show was surprisingly friendly to the oft-neglected woman metalheads, but the women took central parts in raising battle cries for the boys. They perform in renaissance fair gear and kilts, keeping a fun and engaging atmosphere through their set, even if all their songs sound the same.

Genocya played an energetic and spastic set of blackened technical thrashcore numbers, peppered with judicious self-promotion, before the legendary Satyriasis took the stage, bringing hooky but technical death metal to all. Ogrefest itself is organized by Satyrasis’ lead singer and guitarist Dave Petterman, who was thanked by every band on the bill at least once, if not multiple times. They played choice cuts like “Psyclopean Shores” and “Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing,” and a Rush cover to rousing applause.

The outstanding performance had to belong to Lansing’s Dagon (named after the HP Lovecraft story of the same name). They call their music Ocean Metal, and even played a song of the same name, but their music is best described as punishing progressive thrash, with hooky riffs, sing-along chorus and numerous start-stop drum kicks that left the crowd in a tizzy. Their stage presence is playful and professional at once—most notably in a cover of Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker.”

The night ended with a rare performance by notoriously lazy black metal band Sauron, who managed to rouse riotous applause without expensive equipment or even excellent songs, just great riffs and blistering speed. Their original work was strong, but for a closer they played Judas Priest’s “Breaking the Law” causing the first and only real mosh pit of the evening, leaving everyone to wander home sweaty, exhausted, and blissfully full of great underground metal.