Crack the Skye

Oh well, it’s still a good song, check it out below:

Post from: Metal Martyr

This Wednesday Live Nation gives fans ultimate access to some of their favorite bands when for one day only every single fan who buys a ticket to a Live Nation club show is automatically entered to win an Ultimate Access Pass to the venue for which they bought their ticket. The Ultimate Access Pass is Live Nation’s golden ticket, good for admission to every single show in 2010 to an individual Live Nation venue. Every Live Nation club venue will have an Ultimate Access winner, with the names of winners posted on LiveNation.com Thursday morning at 12 Noon Eastern time. On Ultimate Access Wednesday every single ticket will be available at reduced cost as Live Nation drops the service fee on hundreds of thousands of tickets in its club venues across the country for one day only.

In addition to offering the concert goers the chance to win the Ultimate Access Pass, Live Nation is bringing music fans and their favorite bands closer together by hosting fan-and-band meet and greets at venues across the country. Bands including Anvil, Between The Buried And Me, Dethklok and Mastodon, Hellogoodbye, Hollywood Undead with Atreyu and Escape The Fate, LMFAO with Shwayze, Taking Back Sunday, Tesla and The Used will spend the afternoon meeting fans, taking pictures and answering questions. The box offices at Live Nation clubs will be open on Wednesday afternoon, selling no service fee tickets to all scheduled events. All fans purchasing tickets at the box office on Wednesday will also be entered to win the Ultimate Access Pass for that club.

It all happens Wednesday, October 28th as Live Nation drops the service fee on hundreds of thousands of tickets in its club venues across the country. In addition to the onsite meet and greets, the No Service Fee offer will also be available at www.LiveNation.com for 24 hours beginning at 12:01 a.m. local time on Wednesday, October 28th on participating shows.

“I just want to say that Hollywood Undead is totally stoked to have this chance to give back to all of our fans across the Nation on this tour,” said Hollywood Undead’s Charlie Scene. “It’s really cool to see everybody working together for the greater good of music and live shows.”

“This week we’re bringing fans 3 amazing opportunities,” said Michael Rapino, President and Chief Executive Officer of Live Nation. “The first is the opportunity for fans to connect directly with the bands they love in our venues, as the bands themselves help sell no service fee tickets. Second, is the chance to win ‘Ultimate Access Pass,’ to every one of our clubs. And third, is the chance to pick up no service fee tickets to see their favorite bands on hundreds of thousands of club tickets on LiveNation.com. This Wednesday is all about Live Nation and the bands we work with saying ‘thanks’ to the fans for their support and their love of live music.”

The following acts will be meeting fans this week:
Anvil – Hard Rock Café, Toronto 5 – 7 PM
Between The Buried And Me – The Fillmore Charlotte 5:30 – 6:30 PM
Dethklok w/ Mastodon – House of Blues Boston 6:30 – 7 PM
Five Finger Death Punch – The Fillmore Denver 6 – 7 PM
Hellogoodbye – Atlanta Tabernacle 5 – 6 PM
Hollywood Undead w/ Atreyu – The Gramercy Theater, New York 4 – 6 PM
LMFAO w/ Shwayze – The Hollywood Palladium 6 – 8 PM
Taking Back Sunday – House of Blues Chicago 5 – 5:30 PM
Tesla – Murat Egyptian Room, Indianapolis 5 – 7 PM
The Used – TLA Philadelphia 5 – 6 PM

Lawn, general admission or reserved tickets subject to available at participating venues and select shows. Parking and shipping fees may apply. Cannot be combined with any other offer or discounts.

Ultimate Access Pass good at one of participating venues only. Not available in Canada. No purchase necessary. For complete details and official rules go to livenation.com.

Post from: Metal Martyr

1. Parasite Throne
2. Dementia
3. No Haven
4. Perpetual Defilement
5. Inherit Obscurity
6. The Manifest
7. Defaced Reality
8. Siphonaptera From Within
9. Insomnium
10. Skepsis

Justin Longshore, the band’s guitarist had this to say:

“The recording process for Skepsis has been going really well. We really focused on writing a record that will satisfy fans of our previous two records along with pushing new boundaries. Danny is currently finishing up vocal tracking and we couldn’t be any more satisfied with the way things are sounding. I’m really stoked for everyone to hear these new songs.”

The cover of the album was done by artist Paul Romano, who has also done covers for The Acacia Strain, Mastodon and The Red Chord, among many others.

Longshore commented,

“We had Paul Romano do the artwork once again and it is easily one of my favorite pieces he has done. It really captures the concept and music that is behind the album. We wanted the art to really project and not look like every other metal album that you see at your local record shop. We’ll be leaving for tour with Despised Icon in a week so make sure you come out and see an awesome tour! “

The band leaves for tour, supporting Despised Icon, later this week. The dates are:

9/25       Mixtape Café – Grand Rapids, MI
9/26       Doug’s Rockhouse Grill – Aurora, IL
9/27       The Vault – Buffalo, MN
9/28       Nutty’s North – Sioux Falls, SD
9/29       Mission Theater – Mission, KS
9/30       Marquis Theatre – Denver, CO
10/2       The Epicentre – San Diego, CA
10/3       Chain Reaction – Anaheim, CA
10/4       The Boardwalk – Orangevale, CA
10/5       Satyricon – Portland, OR
10/6       Studio Seven – Seattle, WA
10/7       The Venue – Boise, ID
10/8       Industrial Building County – Casper, WY
10/9       V2 – Layton, UT
10/10     The Black Sheep – Colorado Springs, CO
10/12     Sunset Hall – Ft. Wayne, IN
10/13     Bulldog Café – Louisville, KY
10/14     Headliner’s – Toledo, OH
10/15     Chameleon Club – Lancaster, PA
10/16     The Palladium – Worcester, MA
10/17     School of Rock – South Hackensack, NJ
10/19     Mt. Airy Firehall – Mt. Airy, MD
10/20     Jaxx – West Springfield – VA
10/22     The Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
10/24     Volume 11 Tavern – Raleigh, NC
10/25     Valarium – Knoxville, TN

[image: Prosthetic Records]

Post from: Metal Martyr

Pink Floyd’s

“It all comes down to money,” Dailor acknowledges. “We don’t want to half-ass it; we want to make it real and…awesome. But we’re in a time period where labels are doing significantly less, moneywise, or trying to cut back, and making movies isn’t exactly cutting corners. It’s hard for an A&R guy to go to whoever writes the checks and be like, ‘Yeah, this band that sells 150,000 records wants to make a million-dollar movie…’ But we’re not ruling it out yet.”

I say go for it. I was hoping to catch Mastodon play Crack The Skye in full next week but unfortunately I can’t make it and they only have one more date after that before heading to the UK. I’m almost thinking about driving five hours down to Georgia on the 15th just to be able to do that. Anyway, Mastodon, Crack The Skye Movie, your thoughts?

(Image: Amazon.com)

Post from: Metal Martyr

We got a new Lamb Of God album that I still think is not as good as everyone else thinks; and a new Mastodon album that is musically amazing but people seem to bitch about because it’s not heavy enough or something.

Cannibal Corpse release an album that is, well, another good Cannibal Corpse album. Nothing extravagant enough to go on a murder spree, but a good album. Cattle Decapitation almost convince me to not eat beef while Sepultura almost gave me hope that I could listen to them again. That didn’t last. Psyopus almost convince me that something is wrong with my ears.

Thrash is still alive and vibrant with new releases from Kreator and neo-thrashers Lazarus A.D. bringing an old school sound with a modern touch. God Dethroned give us a WW1 History lesson.

The members that try to steal the name of the black metal band that they didn’t own the rights to, lose and start their own band. Something they should have done in the first place instead of wasting money in court.

God Forbid releases a killer, new album and then they lose a key member. Arsis also kind of loses another member and a Hatebreed member leaves the band. Arsis and Hatebreed get old members back. James Malone comes clean about his problems with anorexia, while Dallas Coyle prefers to keep his exit reasoning’s of GF private. I commend both of them for that.

Fuck Limp Bizkit. Oh, and Papa Roach too.

Dave Mustaine and Kerry King grow up and schedule tour dates with each other. Metallica gets inducted in to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Both bassist’s thank the bands that helped launch their career, while James Hetfield doesn’t thank anyone that helped them launch theirs. Lars Ulrich claims that he downloaded Death Magnetic to see how this internet thingy works. I publish a spoof that says that Warner music file lawsuit against him and numerous sites copy me and one even publishes their own version as an April Fools joke.

Metal has two new doc[rock]umentaries that are getting rave reviews. Iron Maiden’s Flight 666 is a fan favorite and most haven’t even seen it yet. Anvil beat Hannah Montana’s ass in opening weekend of their flick The Story Of Anvil. Disney is pissed and vows revenge, citing that Anvil will never play at The House Of Blues.

I’ve yet to get an Infection from Chimaira, but Daath’s The Concealers is currently in my top 10 of 2009.

Fear Factory reunites, kind of, sort of, even after Burton C. Bell says that metal was never his thing. He then shows up at a Ministry show where him and Dino kiss and make up. Well, okay, they just talked.

I know I’ve missed a bunch of cool, or not so cool shit that has happened in ‘09, but I have to close this out somehow. There is a lot of great things in metal to come this year. More great albums, tours and surely a few more reunions, with the economy in the shitter.

Post from: Metal Martyr

If you use Zune and you haven’t bought the new Mastodon album, Crack The Skye then you’ll be pleased to know that Zune has exclusive content for Mastodon as part of their Ignition Artist feature.

As part of the Ignition program, Mastodon will release a series of exclusive features on Zune Marketplace, Zune.net, MSN and Xbox LIVE surrounding the release of their latest album Crack The Skye. The exclusive features include an album download with exclusive track“Divinations (Live)” starting March 31, an editorial track-by-track “Breakdown” of the album by the band (available April 7), a playlist curated by the band (April 14), free track “Divinations (album version)” on April 21, and a free video on April 28. In addition, Xbox and MSN have a “Crack The Skye” webisode available for streaming.

To get the exclusive content visit Zune and also check out Mastodon’s Zune profile.

(Image: Zune.com)

Post from: Metal Martyr

Mastodon’s Crack The Skye

Image: Amazon.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

I haven’t been a fan of Mastodon for a very long. Probably about a year and a half or so was when I really started to take interest and even then I only had Blood Mountain and never really gave their other albums a chance. After I heard Crack The Skye I had to hear the rest and I didn’t quite understand why I didn’t like what I heard on Leviathan and Remission before now. I even bought a copy of Call Of the Mastodon, their first recordings and I really liked it. With that said I can honestly listen to each album in order and hear the progression of the band. It seems if you were a Mastodon fan from the beginning then you really wouldn’t know what to expect to hear on their next albums, except good, heavy music. With Crack The Skye it’s no different.

The guitars on Crack the Skye have a bit more clarity than previous albums but there is still that heavy as hell, foot stomping power chord rhythm that you have come to expect from Mastodon. Granted, it’s a bit slower than previous albums but it’s still heavy. Brann Dailor’s drumming is as usual, for lack of better words, awesome. He doesn’t have a huge intricate set as some drummers do and you can actually see him behind the drum set, but what he does with what he uses is amazing. He takes a reasonable number of toms, cymbals, a single bass (with double pedal) and a snare and just makes the percussion feel enormous like, well, a Mastodon stomping it’s feet. All of that is backed by Troy Sanders bass playing, which is probably grossly underrated. Add the Taurus synth that he used on some of the songs and the bottom end accentuates Brent Hinds’ and Bill Kelliher’s guitar work. Keyboards in Mastodon? Damn right and they sound great too! Rich Morris played the keyboards in a few songs and he deserves some credit too. There is all sorts of stuff that was used to make this album and every bit of it makes the album what it is. Colossal. Brann writes most of the lyrics and even sings on Oblivion, while Brent and Troy do their usual thing with less grimey vocals and a lot more singing this time around. Lyrically, Crack the Skye tells a story that the DVD included with the deluxe edition helps you to understand.

Oblivion, my favorite track on the album, is the beginning of a beautiful ride that just starts out with a big, deep eerie riff and then busts out in to a rifling beat and immediately followed with Brann’s main verse singing and he’s good. Troy comes in with a the bridge and a broken down chorus by Brent that just kills it. It’s a fairly simple structure but it’s so damn catchy that it works out. Brent comes in with solos that just fit the song so well and are just huge. The song starts to wind down and you think it’s the end and then the chorus kicks in again. The song runs almost 6 minutes but it doesn’t feel like it at all.

Divinations is a song that I wasn’t really all that big on when I first heard it, but its come to grow on me and I really dig it. I totally understand why they picked it as the first single. Because it has that heavy, Mastodon feel to it. The video has absolutely nothing to do with the song but it’s still a cool video. The solo that Bent does towards the end, the “Surf” solo as they called it, just makes the song twice as good as it already was.

Quintessence has that psychedelic vibe to it with a wavy kind of verse to it and you hear the Keyboards with a freaky little Floydish sound before the chorus kicks in.

The Czar is over ten minutes and consists of 4 parts and this is when things get a real 70’s groove going on with the first part, Usurper. It picks up speed at the second part, The Escape, and then slows back down for Martyr where you get a 70’s Jimmy Page sounding solo at 8:15 that just makes you feel all warm and gooey inside. The song then slows back down to the 70’s groove and then out with Spiral.

Ghost Of Karelia reminds of of a song from Blood Mountain but for the life of me, I can not figure out which one.

Skipping forward over the title track, which is a great tune too, to the ending. The Last Baron runs just over 13 minutes and has a slow mellow feel to it but picks up speed just after 4 minutes in to it and slows back down at around 9:30 or so. An epic ending to an immense album.

Mastodon is going to get a lot of flack from closed minded fans because this is not as fast and heavy as previous albums, but it’s still damn heavy just in a different way. The bands describes it as having a classic rock feel to it and at times it does but it still holds true to the Mastodon sound like any other album. There are solos that make you want to learn how to play guitar better and the mix of three different people singing keeps things interesting. The chord progression in each song just builds and every song feels like a growing wildfire, building up into an inferno and then dying down just at the right moments.

Anyone that says “this album sucks” either needs their ears checked or doesn’t have a deep appreciation for music. You might not like it, but it doesn’t suck. This is a Mastodon album like no other, but it’s still a Mastodon album.

The “Making Of” dvd that comes with it makes you appreciate the band and music even more and gives a better grasp of the concept of the album and the music behind it. It’s one of the best DVD extra’s or “Making Of” DVDs that I have seen and totally worth a few dollars more. The artwork of the album is all trippy and I would love to see what other artwork the box set has.

If I had to rate this album I would give it a 5 out of 5, 5 stars, two thumbs up, 10/10, whatever. There have been some great albums that have come out this year but so far this has got to be my favorite and the only one that I have probably listened to more that 10 times from beginning to end.

Image: Amazon.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

Mastodon – Crack The Skye (check out the special edition deluxe with a DVD of the Making Of Crack The Skye. I’ll let you know how that is later.)

Type O Negative – Slow, Hard And Deep (Type O’s Debut 1991 album Remastered and reissued through Roadrunner Records)

KMFDM – Blitz (For those that still like the industrial genre)

Papa Roach – Metamorphosis (It’s said that this album is heavier and a bit different from their other releases. So basically it’s going to suck a little heavier and a bit different from their other releases.)

On DVD this week: Despised Icon – Montreal Assault

All Images: Amazon.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

Tomorrow is the big day. Crack The Skye gets it’s official release and Mastodon will be holding a release party in their home town of Atlanta, Georgia. Here is the press release.

MASTODON will take part in an in-store signing session and performance in Atlanta , Georgia on Tuesday, March 24 at 8:30 p.m. at Criminal Records. The band will be promoting their new album, Crack the Skye, which hits stores this week on Reprise Records.  The set will also be streamed live on the Mastodon’s Ustream channel and then archived on their official site for those people who miss it.

So far it seems that Crack The Skye is either a love it or hate it album. Personally, I love it and unless there are like 7 other amazing albums that come out this year that can top it, it will definitely be in my top ten for the year. I really don’t see that happening, but it’s still early in the year.

Image: Total Assault

Post from: Metal Martyr