Crack the Skye left me with some rather bittersweet and curious feelings towards the future and direction of Mastodon, one of the genre’s most successful bands to emerge from the extreme metal underground. While on one hand, I love that album to death for its boldness how much new ground the band covered. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but pine for the then extremely fresh vibes of their first two LPs, the fiery Remission and the progressive (yet very aggressive) Leviathan. After two years of a less rigorous tour schedule than on previous album cycles, Mastodon have teamed up with mega-pop producer Mike Elizondo, who has worked with Avenged Sevenfold, Alanis Morissette, and oddly co-produced 50 Cent’s colossal top 40 hit, “In Da Club”. While this may raise suspicions from a large portion of the band’s ravenous fans, fear not. Mastodon probably won’t be on the radio any time soon. The Hunter shows the band being extremely comfortable in their own skin, forsaking the epic songs and lofty concepts for thirteen tracks of catchy-as-all-hell metal.
Now five albums into their career, Mastodon have undeniably carved out their own style which has since been ripped off by countless bands, and often ones of far lesser quality. Whereas Crack the Skye really showed Mastodon wearing their influences on their sleeve (Led Zeppelin, Yes, etc.), The Hunter shows Mastodon as the influencers. While tracks like “Creature Lives” were certainly surprising and show the band still willing to experiment with new styles of vocal hooks and riffs, you’ll get a healthy dose of Leviathan-esque material. Guitarists Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher still lay waste to their fretboards, most notably in the album’s highlight, “Octopus Has No Friends”. Troy Sanders still knows how to deliver some of the best vocal hooks in metal. It’s hard not to get sucked into many of the album’s memorable choruses like the classic-rock throwback, “Curl of the Burl” Hell, the band even got Scott Kelly of Neurosis once again to lay down some vocals on “Spectrelight”. Everything is all very familiar on The Hunter, but with a band as solid as Mastodon, that’s certainly not a bad thing.
Sure, The Hunter isn’t the huge leap in style that Crack the Skye was. But that’s not what the album is about. Mastodon have clearly carved out their niche within the metal genre and are now simply basking in the glory of it all. And with a sound this tight, unique, and fun, who could blame them?
Rating: 8/10
