THE HUNTER

'The Hunter' - Mastodon (8/10)

Expectations are a funny thing. When a new album comes out, quite often much of one's first experience with it is determined before they even slip the record into the player. Whether it is their favourite band and they have been waiting ages for it, or it is an album that is ridiculed and they have been alerted of how bad it apparently is; all of these factors come together to form our expectation of an album, which- obviously based on the quality of the music itself- will greatly sway our response, even after the album is done. Enter Mastodon, a band I have always generally respected, but did not find much to justify the hype with them, even on their progressive opus 'Crack The Skye'. With that in mind, I may not have had the greatest hopes for the new record, let alone the fact that everything I had heard about this in press releases tended to suggest that this was a simplified and even 'dumbed down' version of the band that had shown a lot of promise with their progressive direction. With that in mind, it may be merely my preconception that it was going to be a mediocre-at-best album, but I have found myself incredibly impressed by the reality of Mastodon's new album; 'The Hunter'. While I can definitely see where some of the descriptors were coming from concerning the new direction Mastodon has taken, the angle from which Mastodon sets off here sets the record straight for me. Not only has my feeling that this was going to be a mediocre album been more or less dispelled, but I would not hesitate in calling this the best album Mastodon have done to date.

Before the album was released, there was plenty of news that this was a simplified, 'accessible' version of Mastodon, and that they were turning their backs on the prog rock trends that the last two records had been rooted in, and going for a more straightforward rock sound. This label passes me very much the same way that the way similar-sounding The Mars Volta's album 'Octahedron' was described as their 'acoustic' record. It is certainly not a literal description, and there is much more going on here than what the artists might lead on. Without a doubt, 'The Hunter' is the most eclectic Mastodon album to date; with songs here ranging from vivid psychedelia, to spacey metal, sombre prog rock and a handful of stoner rock. The only thing on 'The Hunter' that has truly lived up to my expectation are the song lengths, which are kept within a comfortable limit. There are no more bombastic epics here like here were on 'Crack The Skye', but the album manages to stay consistently exciting and interesting, thanks in large part to the diversity of the tracks.

Even from the first listen, each of these songs has a different identity from one another; some songs may follow similar paths, but each has a set of ideas that are entirely their own. Mastodon seems to have made an effort here also not to put any like-sounding songs on one after the other. Take the differences between the second track 'Curl Of The Burl', and its successor 'Blasteroid'. The former is a bluesy piece of mid-tempo riff rock that relies on catchy melodies and straightforward structure, whereas 'Blasteroid' takes the listener on a trippy and exciting journey with all the psychedelic twitters entailed. 'Stargasm' continues this string of awesome song names with a much more melancholic sound, a very spacey piece that could have been plucked straight from 'Crack The Skye'. As far as an overlying change of style and pace goes, I would say that Mastodon have more of a psychedelic influence in their sound than ever, although the metal sound has been largely preserved. I find the psychedelic, and more atmosphere-fueled sections of 'The Hunter' to be among the most interesting, although the heavier parts here are a little more hit and miss.

Mastodon's sludgy riff work and distinctive tone are both here, but it works at its best when they are able to find the fine balance between hooks and heaviness. 'Curl Of The Burl' is an example of a song that tends to stray a little too far into hook territory, and probably best exemplifies why I feared 'The Hunter' would sound like. It may be memorable as a track, but there is no depth to it; and even before the first listen is done, I had the impression that there was now a big void in Mastodon's sound. The only two songs that really realize this 'accessible' rock sound are 'Curl', and 'Dry Bone Valley'. Neither gave me much of a rush, and they do feel like what's keeping me from calling 'The Hunter' a masterpiece, because some of the other material on the album makes me want to make that leap. Mastodon have virtually perfected their spacey sound here, best represented by the album's highlight 'Stargasm', and 'The Sparrow', a sombre track that closes the album in classic prog rock tradition; a trippy hymn that builds and lets the listener off on a perfect note. It is a perfect track for this album, because it gives me great motivation to experience the album all over again. I understand full well that many who are first listening to this album are already Mastodon fans, so taking for the fact that I- someone who never cared for them much in the past- am truly digging this album is a great sign for 'The Hunter'. It is not a full step above 'Crack The Skye' in every way, but as the overall musical experience goes, it looks like Mastodon has a new record to outdo with anything they may release in the future.

Mastodon's Crack the Skye was a milestone prog metal album, the kind of album that benchmarks are set by such was its quality. Two years later and Mastodon are back with The Hunter. Can it live up to its predecessor? Well to be honest no, but that doesn't mean it's not a damn fine album but in keeping such illustrious company as Crack The Skye it was always going to be a near impossible feat to achieve.

I have to admit that on first impressions I was a little disappointed with The Hunter but after a few plays it got me hooked. It's less of a prog album than CTS; In short on the surface it may appear that they've took a few steps back to earlier albums. In some ways they have yet despite being a more straight to the point album - only two tracks breaks the five minute barrier, they still retain elements of CTS in terms of feel and the overall sound. It still has those psychedelic touches and of course is incredibly heavy and intense. Where The Hunter also beats anything pre-CTS is on simply great songs with strong hooks and the vocals retain the improvements made on the last album, in other words real singing. There's some killer tracks none better than Spectrelight which captures them at their most brutal. Equally good is opener Black Tongue and for some light relief from the overall heaviness the title track with its chiming guitar arpeggios and strong melody is excellent and likewise The Sparrow, a brilliant piece of psychedelic heavy rock to close things. Dry Bone Alley is yet another highlight with some killer riffing yet retaining a strong hook.

Thirteen tracks then with only the occasional glitch - Curl Of The Burl and Blasteroid, two early appearances hence my initial apprehension are merely ordinary by Mastodon standards. In fact it's in the second half that most of the best gems lie, where it's more adventurous and they barely put a foot wrong. Any quibbles however are minor and The Hunter turns out to be another excellent album from the American prog metal band and sure to delight most fans.

Two years after 'Crack the Skye', Mastodon returns with a more straightforward album, maintaining the melodic and technical approach from previous albums but sticking to shorter and more immediate songwriting. And I believe that's exactly the problem here, it makes a very good impression at first but as soon as the second listen the simplicity of most the material becomes more explicit, to an extent where continuous listens made me wonder what the heck I though was good about this album at all.

They hit it off quite all right though. 'Black Tongue' is a catchy roller coaster with nice eastern tinged riffs and melodies. The spacey and psychedelic effects are a constant element throughout the album. The stoner of 'Curl the Burl' is more down to earth and a clear omen of less proggy things ahead. This wouldn't be a problem if the material was good, but most of the songs are simply dreadful with their cliched alteration of tech-y brutal sections and melodic breaks that reveal a plainness and cheesiness unseen with Mastodon. The endlessly repeated one-line choruses like 'You're on fire', 'I'm on my way back home', 'Just close your eyes','creature lives',... are tuneless clones of one another, bringing in the sort of ordinary pop-rock features I don't want to hear at all. A shame really as some of the psych-tinged sludge music on this album is actually quite good, but all the shout-along emptiness is too hard to bear.

At its best moments the album tones down the melodic attempts in favor for a moodier Floydian approach that works quite well on songs like 'The Hunter' and 'The Sparrow'. Mastodon is best when they avoid bringing our attention to their vocals, which are whiny and uninspired, and not adding anything interesting at all. Too bad they are all over the place this time.

"The Hunter" is the 5th full-length studio album by US metal/sludge metal act Mastodon. The album was released in September 2011 by Reprise Records. There's a deluxe version available which features two bonus tracks titled "The Ruiner" and "Deathbound". The deluxe edition features a different cover artwork from the "regular" version.

After increasingly putting more and more progressive elements into their basic sludge metal sound, culminating in the very progressive "Crack the Skye (2009)", Mastodon have chosen to go in a different direction on "The Hunter". Listening to the album it's obvious that Mastodon have gone for a much more stripped down and accessible sound. The tracks are for the most part vers/chorus structured and all tracks are between 2 and 5 minutes long. I hear a choir screaming "Sellout", but I assure you that's not the case. While the 13 tracks on the 53:01 minutes long album may not be structurally challenging, there is a lot of depth in the songwriting. Add to that a powerful warm sound production, strong musicianship, better and cleaner vocals than ever (there's still a way to go in that department, but the vocals are generally great) and you have a beast of a Mastodon album.

The music is heavy, the almost psychadelic nature of some of the tracks works well, the riffs and the vocal melodies are memorable after only a few listens and while the more stripped down songwriting approach doesn't always work for other artists, the ever progressing Mastodon masters this more simple musical form in great style too. The change is bold, it's daring and it's quite frankly brilliant. While the more stripped down and less progressive form might suggest a "back to the roots" kind of album, that's not the case. While "The Hunter" sounds unmistakably like Mastodon, the album is different from anything the band have made before. They are simply not content with making the same album twice. So while the music might not be progressive anymore, Mastodon have still progressed their sound. Take a listen to tracks like "Curl of the Burl" or "Creature Lives" for proof of that. Those tracks sound like nothing Mastodon have ever done before. They took some getting used to but both are among the highlights on the album along with the stunning title track and album opener "Black Tongue"

I'm sure "The Hunter" will prove to be a fanbase divider, but I guess you could to a lesser extent say the same thing about "Crack the Skye", so the guys are probably used to the mixed reactions by now. While some fans might turn their backs on the band because of the accessible nature of "The Hunter", I'm sure the album will earn them more fans than they lose. I smell a bigger commercial breakthrough might come with this release. A 4 - 4.5 star rating is well deserved.

7/10

'The Hunter' is a collection of short, earnestly crazy songs.

Mastodon, it's easy to say so, are the biggest Metal band, appealing even to a more mainstream crowd. Ironically, they were able to do so with their most progressive album to date, 'Crack The Skye'. The album was infinitely praised, and it was indeed a great album. It was hard to follow up such an LP, and in general to follow up the four part concept Masotodon had created with their previous and only four works (Remission=fire, Leviathan=water, Blood Mountain=earth, and Crack the Skye=air), but they managed to stay on track and to still be creative, original, and thought-provoking.

'The Hunter' was intended and surely is the most straight-forward of all Mastodon efforts. It was a wise choice in my opinion, not because of a need to reach a different crowd, but to expand their sound, and they accomplished in a way that I honestly did not expect. These songs have that usual, energetic feel that Mastodon always gave us, but the melodies are simpler, the songs much more in quantity and much shorter, (no one of them more than five minutes). However, this album has enough variation to be called Progressive Metal, thanks to bizarre sounds in some points, many time changes, or simply different guitar effects,. This last instrument has always been dominant, in the most absolute way, in this band's music, ad it is so even with this album, having that sludgy tone that is familiar to anyone who knows this band. Musically, in the end, they haven't changed much in sound, but their way in interpreting and executing the music has.

'The Hunter' is a collection of short, little crazy songs, that however are at the same time very serious. The faster songs, basically, are like cracks of fireworks, while the slower songs, well, they're just fireworks in slow motion. It's an incredibly dynamic album, very solid, very memorable, with brilliant musicianship and brilliant songs. 'Black Tongue' is a strong, powerful song, that makes you want to start breaking stuff, while 'Stargasm' moves in an almost sensual way, and 'Octopus Has No Friends', despite having a silly title, has a kind of serious tones you wouldn't expect. 'The Hunter' is a nice slower song, 'Creature Lives' reminds of a strange mix between the cheerfulness of Christmas songs and the cheerfulness of Devin Townsend.

An album that is pretty easy to listen to, with many memorable tracks, and with a great sound that we anyway are used to hearing from this band. A good turn for Mastodon, I hope they again release albums as good as this or as the previous ones.

A mix of old and new.

I will always be a die hard old school Mastodon fan, (Leviathan being one of the first metal albums I listened to) that over the top, mind shattering madness and, barely, organized chaos. I enjoy their later 2 albums, don't get me wrong, just not as much. The more progressive, streamlined, psychedelic and accessible style of sludge metal.

So I was pleasantly surprised upon my first listen of "The Hunter" to find it is a mix of old and new Mastodon. It's a bit of a throw back to crazy Mastodon, but still in the more streamlined style. It's psychedelic sludge metal, filled with a plethora of vocals, is still prominent. Indeed, the vocals range from clean singing to shrill screams, grungy singing and yelling. Dailor's drumming, though nothing like the fill laden, chaotic style I loved so much, touches upon said style at times. The guitar work is heavy, and runs the spectrum...covering everything from melodic to insanity.

"The Hunter" is also much hookier and overall accessible than anything Mastodon has previously done. For many progressive minded fans this may cause cringing, but fear not. Shorter, more to the point song writing is not a bad thing. Sometimes it's fine to just hang around town and not go on an epic journey. Besides, accessible is one thing but musically this is no pop album, technical skill abounds.

As noted by others, the album doesn't take itself too seriously either, always great to see some fun in metal, (or music in general) especially after the grandiose and powerful "Crack the Skye".

Oh, this has nothing to do with the music at all but sweet Jesus look at that album art! One of the best things I've seen in a while, it reflects the insane nature of the album and seems a bit silly almost, but I'm guessing that's the point. Also, it's pretty damn metal \m/

Another great album from Mastodon, "The Hunter" takes a bit of everything they've done and mix it up into one great meal, served in easy to handle dishes. I almost didn't hear it at first but there is some crazy guitar work going on, textured perfectly with more straightforward songwriting. Great vocal performance all around to boot. One of the better releases in 2011.

Four Stars

My opinion of Mastodon have really shifted back and forth over the years; Initial encounter occurred at the 2007 Metaltown Festival in Gothenburg where the band's time slot was squeezed somewhere between Machine Head and Meshuggah, thus not making too much of an impact on me at the time. I'm sure that the fact that Mastodon were doing a supporting tour for Blood Mountain didn't exactly help their cause since I still consider it to be their weakest release to date.

Two years passed and suddenly things were completely turned upside down with the release of Crack The Skye! I'm really not sure what these guys were on when they wrote the concept for that album, but who cares when the final results are this great? Crack The Skye sounded almost nothing like the band's previous offerings and the fact that the album featured two pretty awesome 10+ minute pieces made me completely forget that bleak initial encounter with the band in 2007.

Since 2009, Mastodon have clearly been confused in terms of setting their next big goal, something that often happens with bands that suddenly get some attention from a broader audience. The release of Jonah Hex EP was a interesting but ultimately unsuccessful attempt of scoring a film that would go on to be one of the year's biggest box office bombs. Of course, it would be pointless to even suggest any connections between Mastodon's score and the film's failure, I'm simply implying that this score was pretty dull. The release of Live At The Aragon was a nice treat for the fans, where the band performed their entire fourth album, but I can't help to recall the lessons from the past when record labels tried their best at squeezing every single dollar out of a successful franchise.

These two minor side projects did some damage to the rising reputation of Mastodon, but all of it could have been potentially swiped clean with the release of the band's fifth studio album. Of course even that was turning for the worth when I initially saw the Adult Swim video for the song Deathbound and assumed that it was the first single of the upcoming new Mastodon release!

The two singles that were released leading up to The Hunter were far apart in terms in quality and gave me a very mixed expectations. Black Tongue was a solid but rather standard Mastodon composition while Curl Of The Burl was easily one of the worst compositions that they've recorded so far. Luckily, the album wasn't as bad as these individual moments, but since I prefer to judge releases as a sum of its parts the final results are rather mixed. Yes, there are a few pretty good songs here but there are also many that aren't worth your time. The fact that Mastodon constantly shifts between different styles of their repertoire and decided to do a set of pretty short 13 songs instead of a few much lengthier pieces looks to me like an attempt at pleasing the wide spectrum of their audience instead of sticking to their guns. The final results are good but not good enough to be considered a successful followup to the colorful Crack The Skye.

***** star songs: Stargasm (4:40) All The Heavy Lifting (4:31) The Sparrow (5:32)

**** star songs: Black Tongue (3:26) Blasteroid (2:35) The Hunter (5:18) Dry Bone Valley (4:00) Creature Lives (4:41) Spectrelight (3:10) Bedazzled Fingernails (3:08)

*** star songs: Octopus Has No Friends (3:49) Thickening (4:31)

** star songs: Curl Of The Burl (3:40)

Mastodon shed their progressive technical brilliance and replace it with mediocrity.

Mastodon are capable of some excellent albums as they proved with the ground breaking "Crack the Skye" and before that "Blood Mountain". I put this on eagerly expecting more masterful technical metal but was rather disappointed. It was rather a noisy distortion, not as technical or proficient as other material. This album was louder but the guitars are really fuzzy psych and there is a lot of screaming and layered vocals. There are not that many lead breaks, none of which stand out, and hardly any of the songs stood out as classics, they all just blended together.

Nothing jumped out for quite some time till we got to 'Stargasm' that had some nice spacey atmospherics and psychedelic vocals. 'The Hunter' is a fairly good song with good riffing. 'Dry Bone Valley' had some awesome riffing and cranked along nicely. This really is nothing like previous Mastodon though, very accessible FM sludge meta with repetitive pump-your-fist-in- the-air anthems. The vocals are always multi tracked and sound the same throughout. The lyrics are pretentious and silly though humorous at times. The riffs are not that creative. There are no virtuoso lead breaks.

Best song finally comes well into the album, 'Creature Lives' with weird laughing and synth soaked spaciness. It moves to a nice acoustic feel, and the lyrics are a little strange but work; "I saw the creature fall into the swamp from which he spawned, I heard them laugh and say they never liked him anyway, I tried to talk to them to help you on your feet again, they laughed and said to me the swamp is right where I should be." Ok it's not Shakespeare but this stoner rock is okay with me. I especially love the creative use of a choir sound, and the sustained crunching distorted chords. Even the lead guitars are sounding wonderful on this.

It is followed by the blasting abrasive 'Spectrelight' which is just an awful noise, complete with barf up your breakfast shouting vocals. 'Bedazzled Fingernails' is next, and it has an odd time sig that agrees with my tastes. The vocals are better, the lyrics are worse, "lay me down, stand my ground, taking a life, I see it flash before my eyes." Next is "The sparrow" and the one line in it is, "pursue happiness with diligence, aaaah, aaaaah, aaah, aaaah, aaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaa- aaaaaa-aaaaaaahhhh." Sound advice, guys. This instrumental is actually rather good, acoustics, atmospheric spacey soundscape and dreaminess in the structure. The lead break is very good on this, really outstanding. A pity that the album has some gems but is overall very mediocre, and it doesn't grow on you, quite the opposite.

It was a real sleeper album for me and I was expecting something to blow my head off. Sadly it is a new direction for the band. They have sucked out all the technical progressive time sigs and replaced them with stoner psych acid rock, and its not a compelling listen. I don't hate it but I checked the collaborator's reviews thinking I was being too harsh and saw that most were forgiving enough to give this 4 stars or 3. I will settle for 3 for the overall content which is still well played if not prog or inventive.

Having wrapped up their "four elements"-themed series of albums with Crack the Skye, Mastodon must have been ready for a change, and The Hunter certainly is that. Presenting a more accessible and less overtly technical Mastodon than we've seen in a long time, this is light progresssive metal with stoner and sludge influences that feels a bit like Mastodon on holiday - taking a break from trying to push the boundaries of the genre and simply having a bit of fun with some corny stoner metal material. The end result is a decidedly listenable album which would be a great first choice for anyone just getting into the band, except precisely because it's a bit simpler in approach than previous releases it ends up missing out some of the most distinctive thematic elements of their work.

Sadly, The Hunter was the confirmation that Mastodon are an irregular band!

After the just good Remission they released the excellent Leviathan, and after the disappointing Blood Mountain they achieved to create a true masterpiece with Crack the Skye. And what's with The Hunter? Just another letdown.

The album is not bad, but it was their most commercial yet and although that's not necessarily bad, the simpler songwriting and the short length of the songs was kind of weird after the progressive masterpiece than Crack the Skye was, and that became their music much more conventional, predictable and boring.

And that's my main problem with The Hunter. It was the first Mastodon album that bored me despite its intention to be more varied with its mellower tracks like The Hunter or The Sparrow (very boring ones) and the happy feelings of songs like Blasteroid and Stargasm.

Best Tracks: Black Tongue (a return to the fierce moments of Leviathan), Dry Bone Valley (simple, but good), The Creature Lives (rather strange, but different and catchy)

Conclusion: The Hunter was a strange change of direction for Mastodon. They abandoned the power of their first two albums and the experimentations and prog of their third and fourth records to release a much more conventional disc, much happier and radio friendly. But sadly, they became boring and predictable in the process. And that's a pity for a band so groundbreaking like Mastodon.

Nevertheless, the album is not entirely bad, and it has a pair of brilliant moments. But coming from a band which released wonderful albums like Leviathan and Crack the Sky, that's not enough.

My rating: ***