Best Track on Mastodon - Crack The Skye

Anyone fancy these?
http://www.sneakerobsession.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/mastodon-vans-sneakers.jpg

correct answer btw is The Czar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6Vf5syTfmE

the whole album is on youtube

Where is the "none of the above" option?

it's on "site new answers" and you vote for it by not clicking on the poll

I like the shoes better than the album.

this has so many awesome moments throughout that i totally can't pick one but neurosis dude screamin on the title track gives me chills so

Between Oblivion and Divinations for me.

Particularly love the part of Divinations where he sings, "No escape from the spirits..."

(Or is it "No escape binding spirits"?)

i still say The Czar rules

i can't think of a band i want to like as much as mastodon.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I voted "The Last Baron". Is that perverse? Also, the guitars on this album remind me of Voivod sometimes.

No way, Sundar! You're on the money, "The Last Baron" is the best track here.

"Oblivion" is awesome too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLjMM0VauT8

I really like The Last Baron until the weird funky breakdown 2/3 of the way through that just seems like something for them to fuck around with so they can dramatically go back to the opening sequence

lol i just realized that i wrote a response to a tweet about "crack the skye" saying you should check out the sensational alex harvey band but i thought you meant this crack the skye, duh

http://www.rosfest.com/Performers-2008/Crack_the_sky_logo.gif

Was just listening to this yesterday. "The Czar" is definitely the correct answer.

It's all about "The Czar". Best thing they've ever done.

Yeah M@tt I actually bought that album the other day lol

Tough poll, I'll need to think about this for a bit.

The title track is easily my least favorite, it just doesn't grab me.

I like The Czar, but get pissed when they return to the beginning part toward the end of the song, it should end before that.

The Last Baron has a similar problem but is somewhat doper because it reminds me of Rush's Natural Science plus has bonus YYZ reference. And they seem to go into some really hard hitting funk grooves at one point on this. Still, a bit too long...

This leaves the 4 shorter songs, and for me it is a bit of a tossup, though I'm definitely leaning toward one of the first 2 tracks. Oblivion may end up winning out even though it sounds a bit too much like Alice In Chains. It's damn catchy.

BTW, Brann Dailor is a monster drummer - the Billy Cobham of metal.

hmmm title track after much consideration. scott kelly tears that up. 'oblivion' is a close second. amazing how much creativity, diversity and mood is crammed into that one track.

Phil and I agree on something!!!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

the correct winner!

hurrah

listened to this today and the second half (post-czar) is worse than i thought.

No

Still gotta be the shoes.

would you wear them?

Surprised there are so few votes for Quintessence, that's my favourite, but then I'm not really a metal person so maybe my criteria are totally different. Think this album is remarkably consistent though.

I would totally wear the shoes. I'm actually debating picking up the incredibly ugly De La shoes:

http://www.nike-dunk.us/images/nike-dunk-sb-de-la-soul-high-page.jpg

wow that is ugly

I wish it said "De La Sole" on the bottom. That would be a clincher despite their heinousness.

hahahaha

I shoulda included the instrumental version.

You can now get the instrumental version on a 2xCD special edition
http://download.wbr.com/mastodon/newsletters/112409.html

http://www.mastodonrocks.com/sites/mastodonrocks/files/merch/preview/detail_royaledition.jpg

Pre-Order the new very Limited Crack the Skye Royal Edition featuring the official Score!

Since Crack the Skye Tunnel book sold so quickly and before street date, the band wanted to create another exclusive item for those who may have been left out. However, this edition is more limited than the previous edition.

Royal Edition Package Includes:

* Full Length "Crack the Skye" Album
* Full Length “Crack the Skye” Score first time available on physical disc
* Housed in GOLD stamped foiled Digi- book with brand new gold and black “Crack the Skye” exclusive artwork and packaging designed by Paul Ramano
* 6” x 6” Exclusively designed lithograph unavailable anywhere else
* An instant download of the Divinations (Live at XFM) and Colony of Birchmen (Live at XFM)

THIS IS A ONE TIME PRESSING.
ONCE THEY ARE GONE NO MORE WILL BE CREATED.
AVAILABLE ONLY AT http://www.mastodonrocks.com/merch/?eml=mastodon/d2c/1123/royaledition

Orders will begin shipping on 12.15.09

how nice of them to offer this very limited $40 item to those of us who may have missed out the first time, lol

the 1st ltd edition was $40 too

Mine arrived. Great to have the instrumental version on disc.

Ordered this the other day, can't wait for it to show up. Their live show was great!

seem to have fallen for this album all over again

it's the best mastodon album imho

always thought it was an open question which of the first four was the best but yeah i'm a crack the skye person now

Speaking ov which, just came across this fearless defense, which I wrote for the Collegetown altweekly in late '06 or '07:

TUSK!
Atlanta-based Mastodon, polymathic rawkissers of rippling thud, and formerly the hardest-touring, biggest-selling band on indie metal's highly esteemed Relapse Records, made their major label debut in September '06, with the Warner Brothers release of Blood Mountain. Ensuing online discussion topics, pro and con, will be dealt with in the following manner:
1. "Mastodon Are Mainstream Metal Wannabees." Wrong, they already were mainstream, and no wannabees. At least, to a non-specialist hard rock fan, it seems like all the bands on the "edge" (on Relapse, especially) are the default mainstream of metal. These are the acts who sustain interest and success, via die-hard fans, as CD sales and big-ticket tours continue to die. (Are you going to see Van Halen with your uncle? Again?) If you count only who's on the top of the charts, notice that Iron Maiden made the Top Ten this fall, and Slayer made the Top Five. Maiden's purple mulch, Slayer's rainshark riffage, and both bands' unabashed bashing, are obvious (early) inspirations to Mastodon and their colleagues. Which leads to...
2. "Mastodon are Metallica '86." See 1. No Hollyweird Hair Metalneck overground to rise above, from their San Francisco clubfringe exile. And no Eurometal mail-order-only darkness to enlighten the starved masses with, not when downloads are spilling out of every home, school, and library screen. Also, Mastodon are very old, unlike Metallica in '86.
Yes, and if we must talk about "the edge," Mastodon, in their mid-thirties, are now touring more than ever, away from their wives and kids more than ever, and were recently reported as saying they still hadn't seen any big paychecks. Despite adapting to the pressure, Mastodon refuse, so far, to rehash their influences, nor do they take any other conventionally mainstream approach. They don't write about girlfriends and parents or children or parents or drugs or The Road, unless these are red bulls and striding behemoths on 2002's Remission ; tales of Moby Dick, Captain Ahab, Thor, and lava lovers on 2004's Leviathan ; not to mention birchmen, sleeping giants, crystal skulls, Cysquatch (child of Sasquatch and the Cyclops), and mortal soil, on 2006's Blood Mountain. They also don't have a dominant-to-domineering lead singer (speaking of Metallica). They all four sing "lead," exchanging imagery like they do instrumental vignettes, getting better with each album, and, on Blood Mountain, guest vocals (and lyrics) of Neurosis' Scott Kelly fit in seamlessly, as do the distinctive intonations of Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme and The Mars Volta's Cedric Bixler-Zavala.
3. "Mastodon's got the Ironic Metal Hipsters flocking in, stinking up the joint." Not like True Heads of Metal can't be hipsters, in the sardonically askance sense, and the ones who try to take metal "tropes" utterly seriously, and/or begrudge all outsiders any degree of askance (or study, or credulousness, for that matter), well. Irony, and whatever else you want to call the degree of distance necessary to get perspective (so that you don't confuse it with sarcasm or piety either), not only can co-exist with seemingly unmediated response, it can be a part of that response. The ultravividness of true starpower passes right through caricature (for light years, is the idea, and crying all the way to the bank, etc.) See Bob Dylan, Madonna, Axl Rose, Britney Spears, and many other political figures.
4."Mastodon's also got all the other indie rock people flocking in, trending away from acid folk." Maybe, but Mastodon are true indie rock people, commitment-wise. Also, Mastodon's lyrics are ultravividly multi-faceted: meant to be open to different interpretations, despite comittment and other consistencies, like critters--all of that as any acid folk could hope to be. And acid folk is another side of prog, and Mastodon are into prog. When drummer Bram Dailor sings about a "labyrinth" in Blood Mountain's "Circle Sasquatch," he sounds like he's calling through the labyrinthine curvature of a vibrantly metallic mask, which is appropriate to all of Mastodon's words and music. (Not that they, especially with Dailor, can't swing like a wrecking ball.) Prog can be about rigor, not rigidity, getting in shape to go exploring, not just getting in shape. Nor do they settle for man vs. nature triumphalism, or man vs. nature rise & fall, even. It's man in nature, and vice versa, but especially striking is the former, like on Leviathan , when submission to Ahab is calculated, even with the beatdowns, there's a sense of direction, and even Ahab's trying to calculate how far he can get, into the blowhole of creation. Later that same voyage, it seems that getting thrown into a volcano can also be a crewman's opportunity (an ultimate entry-level gig). No matter how far they get, the albums always end with contemplation of something elsewhere. With instrumentals: Remission 's "Elephant Man," Leviathan's "Joseph Merrick" (AKA the real-life, thoughtful Elephant Man), and, best of all, Blood Mountain's "Pendulous Skin," which would be a good description of the Elephant Man. Or it could be the guy from the previous song, "Siberian Divide," so cold, hallucinatory, and plain hungry that he tried to eat himself. He could now be "Pendulous," being both gnawed and thawed. But he's here, and sounds happy: one of the Mastodons is singing along, down among the instruments, "Now that I've begun…"

(Also a show preview later has them "riding a bullet," which I think is a reference to "The Czar".)