Mastadon: What's the big deal?

Yes thats where I got the Keith Moon impression from, he is an awesome drummer and really sticks out. He just goes crazy where a simple beat could make the song so much better. Moon does this a lot in The Who songs too.

Well, again we'll have to agree to disagree. I hear sophisticated improvisation where you hear "overplaying".

Here's my favorite song of theirs so far:

Sleeping Giant

i know a band called mastodon. never knew that mastadon existed

I never knew there was a big deal about them. Can't say I've heard anything positive about them before.

ultmetal wrote:

I received a letter from a reader of my site pumping these guys today. He basically said he respected my opinion on metal then went on to add that any real metal fan would see how amazing these guys are. Sooooo, I went to YouTube and played three or four songs I could find. Not bad. Vocals are sort of hardcore-ish. I hear a lot of Maiden inspired riffs that would probably be better if they were not downtuned to D. Not sure why every modern band feels that downtuning to "D" is the way to go. Personally I feel that "E" or "Eflat" can give the guitars a better buzzsaw tone. Drummer was cool. Sort of manic stuff. Vocals lacked much melody and the songs don't have a whole lot of hook.

Black Sabbath tunes to Db

a lot of bands go lower than D and have been doing it for many,many years. And yes its true Sabbath was tuning down a step and half in the early 70s.

I checked their music today, and they sound just like any other hardcore. I haven't heard about this band, and didn't know they where popular.

Has the meaning of the word "hardcore" also changed over the years?

When I think of hardcore I think of Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, etc.

detuned wrote:

Has the meaning of the word "hardcore" also changed over the years?

When I think of hardcore I think of Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, etc.

It has. I Also like the hardcore punk bands from the early days, like THE ACCUSED.

powermacho wrote:

I checked their music today, and they sound just like any other hardcore. I haven't heard about this band, and didn't know they where popular.

O NO! Mastodon is far from hardcore. There are tons of hardcore bands out there and if you are saying Mastodon sounds hardcore then you are saying they sound like this.

In these days Hardcore has so many sub-geners mixed in. But In the end, no matter how technical the band gets, if the vocals are cookie style it will make them sound like other bands. Just like death and black metal

I have to say that the band does have a great drummer at least.

MetalRob331 wrote:

powermacho wrote:

I checked their music today, and they sound just like any other hardcore. I haven't heard about this band, and didn't know they where popular.

O NO! Mastodon is far from hardcore. There are tons of hardcore bands out there and if you are saying Mastodon sounds hardcore then you are saying they sound like this.

Hatebreed is not hardcore in my eyes. Hardcore is Blackflag, circle jerks, minor threat, etc.

Anyways, for Mastodon though, I have only heard a couple tracks off Blood mountain so I can't really contribute, but I remember taking a listen to Leviathan when a friend from school burnt me a disc. If I remember right, I think I liked it, but I used to listen to a lot of horrible music back then so I cant really say.

Those bands you mentioned are hardcore but what hardcore was back in the late 80's and early 90's is different then what it is now. I was comparing 2 modern day bands one that people think are hardcore and one that to me is def a modern day hardcore band.

Also there drummer is amazing, at least we can all agree on that

powermacho wrote:

In these days Hardcore has so many sub-geners mixed in. But In the end, no matter how technical the band gets, if the vocals are cookie style it will make them sound like other bands. Just like death and black metal

I have to say that the band does have a great drummer at least.

Go back and listen to that song I posted on the last page, no "cookie" vocals in that one.

They definitely don't sound ANYTHING like Hatebreed.

You might wanna change that Thread name, people might mistake this thread for the AOR band, I know I did. Or maybe that short-lived rapper Masta Don!


But Mastodon, I like them. I have Leviathan and Call of The Mastodon. Thems some good eats for the ears.

EvyMetal wrote:

You might wanna change that Thread name, people might mistake this thread for the AOR band, I know I did. Or maybe that short-lived rapper Masta Don!


But Mastodon, I like them. I have Leviathan and Call of The Mastodon. Thems some good eats for the ears.

The Christian AOR band is actually called "Mastedon".

There is no big deal about them. HORRIBLE!! Good drummer and a few occasional good riffs, but its blah.

I have Blood Mountain, I thought it was ok, I played several times then on the shelf it went. Saw them play live last summer and thought their stage presence and show were boring to watch. They seemed liked they were glued down.

used to really like them then got bored

Angelcake Adonisus Fox, sometimes we take for granted the fact that bands of which we're totally unfamilar with, will often come across as extremely foreign musical concepts. If we've never heard a specific band before, or have never been introduced to their unique musical paradigm/formula, it might literally sound like nothing more than white noise or nonsense/jibberish to us...that is, until our brains can assimilate, and create a new musical template to serve as a basis for comparison to other works which bear similarities.

This might sound all kinds of academic, but it's really rather a simple concept to grasp....and, it accurately describes what's actually happening there with our noodles. Since the features of Mastodon are foreign to us initially, our brains will search for overarching patterns in the music which might distinguish it, setting it apart from other forms, or genres, of Metal music. Mastodon actually has several of these distinguishing features. These can be found in the drum patterns and convulted guitar work.

After our brains, hidden from our knowledge, have done plenty of the work, a new musical template/paradigm is created and kept available to us, serving as a framework with which to compare other, similiar works, such as those from Baroness and The Ocean. Next time we hear something from this sub-genre, our brains can make much quicker deductions about what we are hearing. The template picks out the similarities, and other brain regions help us out with the rest. But, most importantly, we must give the new music ample time to unravel/decode itself before passing judgement.

A band like Mastodon will inevitably deliver compositions of greater complexity than the average Metal of old, and a certain degree of patience should be afforded accordingly. Usually, the patience is rewarded with a more fulfilling song. I'm very much grateful for bands like Mastodon. Although, I find it a tad frustrating that no one has ever managed to come up with an agreed-upon name for this genre. I've heard Post-Rock, Post-Metal and Progressive Sludge or Progressive Stoner, but nothing which has really stuck. What are you guys dubbing this? And, has what I said on the subject made sense to all ya'll?

I like Mastodon, I agree not the greatest metal band in the world but a good band, that for whatever reason has mainstream musical critics tripping over their thesaurus finding new words to praise them, I think it is interesting that publications such as Rolling Stone and Spin praise this band.

I've tried them a time or two. While I can hear the talent the band has, there is just nothing that grabs me. Everything I heard from them left me cold.

As to the post slightly above mine, I REALLY think you're over analyzing things there. What it all comes down to is whether or not a listener feels compelled in any way to listen again. Some people are going to hear them and be interested and want repeated listens. Other are going to hear them and feel nothing. Still others are going to hear them and completely dislike them. It's the nature of music. Mastadon are not so alien and abstract that it's like they are reinventing the musical wheel, as it were.

Marc Mason wrote:

Angelcake Adonisus Fox, sometimes we take for granted the fact that bands of which we're totally unfamilar with, will often come across as extremely foreign musical concepts. If we've never heard a specific band before, or have never been introduced to their unique musical paradigm/formula, it might literally sound like nothing more than white noise or nonsense/jibberish to us...that is, until our brains can assimilate, and create a new musical template to serve as a basis for comparison to other works which bear similarities.

This might sound all kinds of academic, but it's really rather a simple concept to grasp....and, it accurately describes what's actually happening there with our noodles. Since the features of Mastodon are foreign to us initially, our brains will search for overarching patterns in the music which might distinguish it, setting it apart from other forms, or genres, of Metal music. Mastodon actually has several of these distinguishing features. These can be found in the drum patterns and convulted guitar work.

After our brains, hidden from our knowledge, have done plenty of the work, a new musical template/paradigm is created and kept available to us, serving as a framework with which to compare other, similiar works, such as those from Baroness and The Ocean. Next time we hear something from this sub-genre, our brains can make much quicker deductions about what we are hearing. The template picks out the similarities, and other brain regions help us out with the rest. But, most importantly, we must give the new music ample time to unravel/decode itself before passing judgement.

A band like Mastodon will inevitably deliver compositions of greater complexity than the average Metal of old, and a certain degree of patience should be afforded accordingly. Usually, the patience is rewarded with a more fulfilling song. I'm very much grateful for bands like Mastodon. Although, I find it a tad frustrating that no one has ever managed to come up with an agreed-upon name for this genre. I've heard Post-Rock, Post-Metal and Progressive Sludge or Progressive Stoner, but nothing which has really stuck. What are you guys dubbing this? And, has what I said on the subject made sense to all ya'll?

Like Sideshow just said, I'm pretty sure it just boils down to people liking different things, you don't have to make it so complicated that it sounds like a math problem...

But, I really do think that there is some important innovation going on with this band, and some of the others in this sub-genre that bears no name. If you don't think that this genre is innovative in some way, I think you're missing something. . . I remember the first two times I heard Blood Mountain. I didn't know what the heck to make of it. It sounded so foreign. Just prior to this, I had read a couple of titles under the subject of The Psychology of Music, and that whole template/paradigm thing came immediately to mind. The music of Mastodon didn't make any sense to me at first, and the reason for it was now readily apparent. I had no earlier examples in my brain to compare it to. The music of Mastodon was progressive in ways that we had never heard before. The drum work was completely unique and so were the guitar patterns. I do think that bands like Mastodon, Baroness, Giant Squid, Pelican, Red Sparowes, Opeth, Agalloch have re-invented the wheel....Or, reinvented it as much as it can be in the year, 2009. These groups are as innovative as is possible in this age. And, I can't get enough of 'em.

Mastodon owes a lot of their progressive tendencies to King Crimson (as do Baroness and quite a few of these other recent groups). That's actually why I like this category of bands, they aren't afraid to go back prior to the 80's for their influences.