"Scatter ash in the wind" - Mastodon

News item the first: Back from the holidays, not the dead. I wasn't internetting too hard over the holiday weekend, and I figured you wouldn't be either. I was mostly trying to get drunk to make palatable the fact that my family watches any and every football game played by any team on any level.

News item the second: Blogspot is a huge pain in the ass now that they merged with Google. Since when did a search bar become the Standard Oil of the internet?

I interviewed the Hold Steady this weekend (although my as yet unpublished interview with Leftover Crack will likely be going up first), and lead guitarist Tad Kubler and I started getting into how gay we both are for the new Mastodon record, Blood Mountain. He told me he constantly listens to it on headphones in the middle of the night, and it's so loud that it wakes his girlfriend up in the other room. ROCK. Glad to know even though the dude is pushing 35-40, he still knows how to jam.

I don't really listen to metal that much (too much Cookie Monster screaming for me, honestly), but this record fucking blows me away every time I put it on. I'm thinking about planning my next trip to Atlanta to coincide with one of their hometown shows.

Unlike a lot of metal acts, these dudes don't pummel you with lightning-fast double bass kicks or try to wow you with shredding. They just hit hard and heavy, like being punched in the gut repeatedly by an angry bouncer at Club 112 ("one twee-zay!"). They understand the power of a great riff, strong songwriting, and a lead singer that actually sings instead of barking or shrieking unintelligably.

I'm tossing you three bones. The first is the single and leadoff track "The Wolf is Loose," which makes harmonic counterpoints sound as punk as spikes in your jacket (but not nearly as cliche or stupid). "Colony of the Birchmen" is more melodic, and features teen girl dreamboat Josh Homme of Queens of the Stoneage. The last, "Crusher Destroyer," is from the album Remission and my favorite Mastodon song. You better believe I rock this shit at parties.

http://www.mysharefile.com/v/6232063/Mastodon_The_Wolf_Is_Loose.mp3.html

http://www.mysharefile.com/v/3233754/Matodon_Colony_of_Birchmen.mp3.html

http://www.mysharefile.com/v/5092524/Mastodon_Crusher_Destroyer.mp3.html