Mastodon - Hushed And Grim

RevDrucifer

RevDrucifer

Fractal Fanatic
Not sure how many Mastodon fans are here, but this is the only band I've ever had in my life that's progressively released better and better albums as time has gone on. I was never big into them during their caveman years, but once they released Crack The Skye, I was hooked. They basically turned into a 70's prog band, while occasionally interjecting their more heavy roots, but the 70's prog thing certainly took over more than the heavy stuff. This turned off a lot of their early fans, but turned me into a diehard. Since Crack The Skye they've released album after album that seems to have been timed perfectly with what's been going on in my own life and they've often become the soundtrack to certain periods.

Hushed And Grimm is no different, while being an even bigger departure from their original caveman roots. It's a double album and only has a couple songs with standard song structures (the singles), it's a slow burn, but holy fucking shit is it good. The guitar playing on this album is just ridiculous. So many killer tones, as they change it up with every song and man, Brent Hinds is just a BEAST of a guitar player. The dude can pull of the chicken pickin' thing, the blues thing and the straight up sludgey bangin' riffs. There's nothing 'modern' sounding about this band. Their productions are always great and surely they learned a lot with the albums they did with Brendan O'Brien, with this album being done with David Botrill. I wasn't digging the mix at first, but after sinking in a bit more, it's perfect for the mood and content of the songs.

Three of the 4 guys sing and they do an outstanding job at picking the right guy for the right part. Brent's got a rather unique voice, Troy (bass) has got this giant caveman voice while still pulling off killer melody and delivery and Brann (drummer) just comes in with this angelic voice over the top of it all and the dude writes these damn choruses that just get stuck in your head for hours. I highly suggest them to anyone into the prog thing, for me, this is just perfect music. They write for themselves and have carved out a niche that's unique to them. No one sounds like these guys, no one writes music like this anymore.

A couple tunes I'm currently digging-









Can't wait to see these guys in a couple weeks at Welcome To Rockville!
 
YES!! One of my favourite bands of the 21st Century for sure. Brann Dailor is a BEAST!!
I have no idea how he can pull of those drum parts and sing lead vocals at the same time.

You are right. Such a talented band all around. Total package for sure. I am stoked to purchase
the new album and listen to it in its entirety, which I have not done yet.
 
Gregmang said:
I'm WAY overdue checking them out.

I'm currently on a Gojira love fest :)
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I'll be seeing them in a couple weeks, too! First time I see them and I can't wait! While I wasn't huge on their last record, I LOVE their previous ones. I have no doubt they're going to crush at that festival!
Gregmang said:
WOW ! The Beast is GREAT stuff and not what I expected !
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That one is totally out of left field for them, it's a legit country and blues song.....with Mastodon vocals. Love the tones on it and that intro is sick!
la noise said:
YES!! One of my favourite bands of the 21st Century for sure. Brann Dailor is a BEAST!!
I have no idea how he can pull of those drum parts and sing lead vocals at the same time.

You are right. Such a talented band all around. Total package for sure. I am stoked to purchase
the new album and listen to it in its entirety, which I have not done yet.
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I love Brann's voice so much. I wish I could sing up in that range like he does. Ozzy and King Diamond (was just at a King Diamond tribute show last night actually) are two of his favorite vocalists and I TOTALLY hear that, especially the chorus in "High Road", that's TOTAL Ozzy right there. He did a fantastic fucking job on "Stairway To Heaven" as well.



What's crazy is that they performed that at their manager's funeral. You can find the audio from it on their website, I'm listening to it for the first time now. That must have been somethin' else....I don't know if I'd be able to perform at my friend's funeral.

Hushed And Grim is certainly deserving of it's title and it's not like their previous work, but it's been on repeat on some device in my apartment nonstop since Friday night. My ipad's out in the living room playing it now while I'm in the studio. It's music like that which makes me really miss jamming with like-minded musicians, when we'd have hour long improv jams and develop songs out of those, which is how Mastodon and Tool write so much of their music, just jamming it out and letting the songs write themselves, something I wish Dream Theater would get back to doing instead of chopping up sections in Pro Tools and dictating how the song is going to go.
 
My favorite band by quite a margin. They just get increasingly better with each release. First heard Crack the Skye when it came out, and couldn’t stop listening. I think Emperor of Sand is their best album comprehensively, but Crack the Skye holds a special place for me.

Love Hushed and Grim! Much more vibey and complex. It’s been on repeat since Friday here as well! A truly great showcase of some incredible musicians that clearly were meant to create with one another.
 
Sfalsetto said:
My favorite band by quite a margin. They just get increasingly better with each release. First heard Crack the Skye when it came out, and couldn’t stop listening. I think Emperor of Sand is their best album comprehensively, but Crack the Skye holds a special place for me.

Love Hushed and Grim! Much more vibey and complex. It’s been on repeat since Friday here as well! A truly great showcase of some incredible musicians that clearly were meant to create with one another.
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I was just telling my buds today that just like I became a hardcore Floyd/Vai/Dream Theater/Alice In Chains fanatic over the years, I just crossed that threshold with Mastodon. I haven't had that happen with a band in so long, the last one maybe being Mudvayne in 2001 and I only had 2 albums to dig into then.

I dug "Colony Of Birchmen" when I first heard it back in the day, I knew of them before that but wasn't really sold. "Colony" was the first song that really grabbed me that made me want to listen to it more than a few times. Then one night I caught the premier of "Oblivion" on MTV2 and immediately I was hooked. I was working in the restaurant business back then and every night I got home from work, before I did anything else I'd sit in my room with headphones on and listen to "Oblivion", it was totally my reset switch. My ex and I didn't listen to anything but that album for the following two years it was out. Caught them twice on that album cycle and it was really cool to hear how much better they were getting as a result of the constant touring.

I'm with you on Emperor, until Hushed And Grimm came out, but before Emperor, Once More Round The Sun was my favorite....and before that was The Hunter....I see a theme occurring here. :smiley:

And I agree, these guys are just one organism when they write together.

Side story- I met Brann the first time I saw them at the HoB in Boston. I went to use the bathroom and he was just chilling by the merch booth. I think that might have been a Lamb Of God show, actually, with Dethklok and Mastodon. He was BEAT. I did the quick, "Hey, just want to say thanks man, this album is huge for me and I appreciate the effort you guys put into your work" thing and he was really receptive, but you could just see he was run down and I actually felt a little bad.

Fast forward about a year or so and I was at NAMM 2011 standing in the Ibanez booth with my ex, I look over and Brann's standing there looking at the guitars, so we wandered over to say hi. I told him about meeting him in Boston and mentioned how tired he was, he apologized. :tearsofjoy: I was like, "No, dude! No apology necessary! I thought it was fucking awesome how tired you were yet were just standing there at the merch booth for anyone to come talk to you. That's some serious dedication!" We shot the shit for about 5-6 minutes until it hit that awkward point where you don't know what else to say, so I go, "Well, I'm sure you've got plenty of things to be doing right now, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us for a bit....", he cut me off and goes, "No, not really. I'm just hanging out." then continued to stand there. :smiley: Such a cool dude.

I smoked cigs back then and was on the same smoking schedule as Troy, so every hour or so I'd find myself in the rear smoking area shooting the shit with him about bands and the tours they've been on. Really down to earth guy while having a charismatic personality that wasn't bombastic. I saw Bill later in the day looking at these kid's toy guitars, I walked beside him and jokingly said, "Ya lookin' for a new brand to hook up with?" and he says in the most serious voice, "No, I'm with someone already.", I had to laugh before I told him I was joking and was a fan, not someone trying to get him to endorse my toy guitars.

Didn't get to meet Brent, I don't think he was there that year....probably for the safety of the NAMM attendees.
 
I LOVE Blood Mountain up through Once More. I dig a few tunes off Leviathan. Blood and Thunder being an excellent intro to them, imo. I couldn't get into Emporer of Sand at all. I need to check this one out.

I think the 3 vocalists is a great touch and if I try my hand at writing heavies any more; its usually a ripoff of something they've already done 1000x better lol
 
RevDrucifer said:
I was just telling my buds today that just like I became a hardcore Floyd/Vai/Dream Theater/Alice In Chains fanatic over the years, I just crossed that threshold with Mastodon. I haven't had that happen with a band in so long, the last one maybe being Mudvayne in 2001 and I only had 2 albums to dig into then.

I dug "Colony Of Birchmen" when I first heard it back in the day, I knew of them before that but wasn't really sold. "Colony" was the first song that really grabbed me that made me want to listen to it more than a few times. Then one night I caught the premier of "Oblivion" on MTV2 and immediately I was hooked. I was working in the restaurant business back then and every night I got home from work, before I did anything else I'd sit in my room with headphones on and listen to "Oblivion", it was totally my reset switch. My ex and I didn't listen to anything but that album for the following two years it was out. Caught them twice on that album cycle and it was really cool to hear how much better they were getting as a result of the constant touring.

I'm with you on Emperor, until Hushed And Grimm came out, but before Emperor, Once More Round The Sun was my favorite....and before that was The Hunter....I see a theme occurring here. :smiley:

And I agree, these guys are just one organism when they write together.

Side story- I met Brann the first time I saw them at the HoB in Boston. I went to use the bathroom and he was just chilling by the merch booth. I think that might have been a Lamb Of God show, actually, with Dethklok and Mastodon. He was BEAT. I did the quick, "Hey, just want to say thanks man, this album is huge for me and I appreciate the effort you guys put into your work" thing and he was really receptive, but you could just see he was run down and I actually felt a little bad.

Fast forward about a year or so and I was at NAMM 2011 standing in the Ibanez booth with my ex, I look over and Brann's standing there looking at the guitars, so we wandered over to say hi. I told him about meeting him in Boston and mentioned how tired he was, he apologized. :tearsofjoy: I was like, "No, dude! No apology necessary! I thought it was fucking awesome how tired you were yet were just standing there at the merch booth for anyone to come talk to you. That's some serious dedication!" We shot the shit for about 5-6 minutes until it hit that awkward point where you don't know what else to say, so I go, "Well, I'm sure you've got plenty of things to be doing right now, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us for a bit....", he cut me off and goes, "No, not really. I'm just hanging out." then continued to stand there. :smiley: Such a cool dude.

I smoked cigs back then and was on the same smoking schedule as Troy, so every hour or so I'd find myself in the rear smoking area shooting the shit with him about bands and the tours they've been on. Really down to earth guy while having a charismatic personality that wasn't bombastic. I saw Bill later in the day looking at these kid's toy guitars, I walked beside him and jokingly said, "Ya lookin' for a new brand to hook up with?" and he says in the most serious voice, "No, I'm with someone already.", I had to laugh before I told him I was joking and was a fan, not someone trying to get him to endorse my toy guitars.

Didn't get to meet Brent, I don't think he was there that year....probably for the safety of the NAMM attendees.
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We definitely have similar taste in music haha! Love me some Mudvayne. Yeah like I said above, each of their releases since I began listening have resonated, and are in pretty consistent rotation for me. Just great songwriting that seems to evolve with each album, and fantastic tones.

Those are some pretty amazing stories! I've never had the privilege of meeting any of the guys, but from interviews and videos I have seen, they seem like pretty cool dudes. I've seen a few pretty impressive Red Rocks performances from them though, they always deliver.

For anyone looking to dive deeper, there are some fantastic behind the scenes, making of videos on YouTube. I'm really hoping they do another documentary type series for Hushed and Grim. I thoroughly enjoyed the one for Emperor. Brent and Bill are true amp nerds like most of us, so there's some great material to be found for sure. There are some truly entertaining videos coming out of their camp. They are a great band with a sense of humor, and they let their music speak for itself which is very refreshing.
 
Sfalsetto said:
We definitely have similar taste in music haha! Love me some Mudvayne. Yeah like I said above, each of their releases since I began listening have resonated, and are in pretty consistent rotation for me. Just great songwriting that seems to evolve with each album, and fantastic tones.

Those are some pretty amazing stories! I've never had the privilege of meeting any of the guys, but from interviews and videos I have seen, they seem like pretty cool dudes. I've seen a few pretty impressive Red Rocks performances from them though, they always deliver.

For anyone looking to dive deeper, there are some fantastic behind the scenes, making of videos on YouTube. I'm really hoping they do another documentary type series for Hushed and Grim. I thoroughly enjoyed the one for Emperor. Brent and Bill are true amp nerds like most of us, so there's some great material to be found for sure. There are some truly entertaining videos coming out of their camp. They are a great band with a sense of humor, and they let their music speak for itself which is very refreshing.
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Hahaha I just watched the making of Emperor today!

And yeah, the videos they released the week leading up to the album….or the cooking vids….they’re a bunch of goofs. Or Brent talking about writing all his riffs on the moon in a matter-of-fact voice that makes you really consider if he thinks he’s on the moon or not. :D
 
You purchase/listen to the new Jerry Cantrell album, yet, Rev?

Mastodon and Jerry both day releasing new albums on the same Friday! :)
 
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