For those of you who live under a rock, or are not Mastodon fans, Mastodon's forthcoming album The Hunter is released at the end of this month.
In the past few weeks, my excitement levels for this album have gone from 'moderate' to 'extreme', as the band have drip-fed three tracks out over the internets. First-up was Black Tongue, which is menacing, heavy, and one hell of a way to open a metal album:
In my view, this a really engaging, well-written song. It manages to be intense throughout, whilst not playing to the standard verse-chorus-verse structure, and has anyone even bothered to try and count how many fills Brann Dailor lets rip with?
Next up was Curl of the Burl, another in a long line of song titles that make no sense to anyone but Mastodon.
This track actually reminds me of Corrosion of Conformity... it's instantly catchy whilst not being as full-on intense as Black Tongue. Certainly some more prog leanings on show here too, and the guitars sound awesome - that main riff is just pure toxic sludge. Plus, you have to respect a song which has an opening lyric like "I killed a man, 'cause he killed my goat".
And then today we got Spectrelight, which is some serious up-tempo old-school Mastodon kick-assery.
Savage, relentless, and with a wicked (not to mention completely unsignalled) tempo change at 1:14.
If these three tracks are anything to go by, The Hunter is looking like one seriously mean album which could even outdo their recent efforts Crack the Skye and Blood Mountain. You know what you need to do on September 26, folks.
nb: Rumour has it these guys could be on their way down under for Soundwave Festival in 2012 - let's hope so.
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