Album Review: Mastodon - Once More 'Round the Sun

In the 21^st century, has there been a new metal band with the commercial and critical acclaim of Mastodon? Time and time again they have proven to be a fearless outfit, willing to chase their demented muse wherever it should lead them. Their legendary debut, Remission, is still considered by many to be a milestone of American sludge and cemented the band as heavyweights of the genre. Much to the chagrin of some purists, with every new album released since then Mastodon have drifted further and further away from their punishing origins. This might have cost them some of their more dogmatic fan-base but with every step forward the future becomes brighter and more unpredictable for these venerable gents. Once More 'Round the Sun is album number six and it follows a rather traditional trajectory, quite in spite of the strange people who created it.

For starters it adheres well to the classic A-side / B-side structure used by their 70s prog and metal heroes. All of the singles are crammed into the first half of the record. As well as 'High Road' and 'Chimes at Midnight' you are treated to the bright and shiny choruses of 'The Motherload' early on. Each and every one leads out as the best foot forward. This is aided and abetted by producer Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Deftones, Rush). Just like 2011's The Hunter, a veteran producer with some big radio-friendly names on his resume has been brought make the hooks pop without letting go of the grit. It is a hard act to balance and it generally comes off well.

But just as soon as you cross the album's equator it becomes obvious that you are dealing with a very different creature. It starts with the manic Rush-isms of 'Asleep in the Deep', a love-letter to the brackish prog rock they have been huffing on for some time now. Then there's hyper-kinetic 'Aunt Lisa' and her foul-mouthed cheerleaders, the gravitational groove of 'Halloween', and the sheer doom of 'Diamonds in the Witch House'. The B-side is where all of their eccentric genre dalliances have been hiding. Just as soon as the listener gets comfortable a new something to chew gets on tossed out. Mastodon have been raw, classicist, elemental, astral, and fantastical before. But have they ever been quite this alien?

The band's stock in trade has always been molten slabs of guitar riffs and sky shattering solos from Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher, brutal bass rumblings from Troy Sanders, and powerful poly-rhythms from Brann Dailor. The goods news is that none of this has changed. They might have toned down some of their more eccentric tendencies (that is to say, you won't find any 13 minute 'The Last Baron's here) but those basic elements that we've come to rely on are all very much in place. On album opener 'Tread Lightly' you can clearly hear classic Mastodon leering at you through that psychedelic haze. One thing for sure as is on those linchpin singles (and potential singles) the vocals have been been brought up to the front of the class.

By default Hinds is the voice of modern-era Mastodon. He handles the majority of the work even if his particular style of yowling (Hillbilly Ozzy Osbourne?) can be a bit of an acquired taste. Still it would be foolish to overlook either Sanders or Dailor. In particular it is stickman Dailor who steps up and fills his expanding role as singer well. He handles a lot of the album's brightest melodies with the same prodigious vigour he brings to the drum kit. After all he is the one that is all over 'The Motherload', a song that serves to remind us of the band's crossover appeal. Mastodon's layered, interchangeable approach to the human voice is an important facet of their identity,

Once More 'Round the Sun again includes some collaborations with like-minded artists. As has become Mastodon tradition, Scott Kelly of Neurosis lends his haggard gravitas to closer 'Diamond in the Witch House'. It's not as memorable as his attention-grabbing turns on 'Aqua Dementia' or 'Crack the Skye' were, but it has become somewhat of a Mastodon tradition to have him there. The all-girl punk group The Coathangers deliver a double dosage of their explosive clout on 'Aunt Lisa'. The song's pep rally coda is one of the album's stand out moments.

So, to address the elephant in the room - yes, this is Mastodon's most accessible album to date. Whether that is an enticing proposition or the words you have been fearing is entirely up to you and your tastes. Their evolution from Remission to here has been a slow but steady march towards respectability. They are still wild, weird, and seismically heavy but every new album grafts on more strings to their almighty bow. And all this begs an important question: if a band has conquered the land, the sea, the sky, and space itself, where else can they possibly go? Obviously there is no way to know what Mastodon are going to try next. All we can do it wait, with our eyes peeled and our stereos turned all the way up, and wait.

Rating: A
Recommended tracks: Aunt Lisa, Chimes at Midnight, Asleep in the Deep

From the Professor's Page: Casting our eyes forwards

Hello guys and girls of the wider Eclectik Electrik community. 

It's been a wee while since I've posted any reviews or articles, but fear not, more of that good stuff is on the way! In the meanwhile though here is an updated list of albums we are expecting (and anticipating) over the coming months. As you have come to expect this is an eccentric collection of albums to satisfy many tastes. Of course there are going to be plenty more than this but it seems like a good opportunity to whet our collective appetites. Here's some additional info on some of those you might not recognize:

• Got A Girl is the new project from producer Dan the Automator (Deltron, Gorillaz, Kasabian). For this album he has teamed up with actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Death Proof, Die Hard).
• Tweedy is a new collaboration between Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) and his eighteen-year old son, Spencer.
• The Flaming Lips Present With a Little Help From My Fwends is a full-album cover of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. So far the band have announced contributions on the album by Moby and Miley Cyrus. This will be predictably odd.

Releases July - October 2014:

Judas Priest – Redeemer of Souls (July 8)

Wolves in the Throne Room – Celestite (July 8)

Antemasque – Antemasque (July 15)

Got A Girl - I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now (July 22)

The Black Angels – Clear Lake Forest (July 29)

Willis Earl Beale – Experiments in Time (August 8)

Kimbra – The Golden Echo (August 19)

Opeth – Pale Communion (August 26)

Interpol – El Pintor (September 9)

Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters – Lullaby and the Ceaseless Roar (September 9)

Tweedy – Sukierae (September 16)

Julian Casablancas and The Voidz – Tyranny (September 23)

The Flaming Lips – Presents With a Little Help from My Fwends (October 27)

*All dates as based of best current info and US release dates

So what do you think, true believers? Can you find something here to get excited about? I'm counting on it!

- "Professor" Ricardo

Album review: Kasabian - 48:13

Most successful rock bands reach a point in their career where they face the pressure to “return to their roots”. That's right, no matter how hard they might have worked to progress beyond their meager origins there are people who wish they had never evolved in the first place. These back-to-basics efforts tend to have mixed results. In the case of Kasabian and their 'right back where we started' new album 48:13 things are slightly different. You see, these guys didn't start out as some humble pub band who got all weird on us when they became famous. No – they started out strange on their 2004 debut and have just become more stadium-friendly in the meantime. For them finding themselves back at the start means that they have rekindled their interest in electro-freakiness and Madchester hedonism. The end result is an album that is endlessly charming in spite of its flaws.

What is apparent from the very start is that 48:13 is a record designed to make you dance. The rousing choruses of 'Stevie' and 'Bow' seem tailor-made for the sweaty mayhem of a Glastonbury festival moshpit. In spite of this 48:13 is not a particularly single-oriented album. In fact, you will get a lot more out of your listening experience if you can find the time to just sit down (or jump around) and take it all in. It's not that Kasabian have forgotten how to rock out or anything – perish the thought. It's just that they are being much more selective about when they choose to do said rocking out. The disco aftermath of 'Explodes' conceals the churning guitar grind at the end, a sound that is conspicuously low in attendance. Considering that the song comes hot on the heels of 'Glass', which features a few inspirational bars from MC Suli Breaks, and you have some idea what a jarring collection of ideas 48:13 can be. This unevenness has become Kasabian's calling card of sorts.

The song here that best exemplifies the style of this album might just be 'eez-eh', the batshit crazy lead single that borrows liberally from the likes of Underworld and Chemical Brothers. It is kinetic, ecstatic, and bound to be a favourite at their concerts. So what's the catch? All of the trappings that Kasabian have built into these tracks to give them that stadium appeal unfortunately have a habit of knocking them down a few pegs in the smarts department. I'm aware that this isn't Coheed and Cambria; these guys aren't trying to conduct a convoluted sci-fi opera here, but does that excuse the cliches that makes it all sound a little dumb? A pounding hook like “And if you want to, I'll take you out / Cause I got the feeling that I'm gonna keep you up all night” is catchy, but so is VD. Four on the floor, hands in the air, party-time has never felt so conflicted. I guess the trick is to have such a good time you forget to look deeper for any sort of meaning.

After all of this mayhem, album closer 'S.P.S' remains the most surprising moment of the record. Here the bleeping synths and shivering rave-ups are traded in for softly strummed guitars and singer Tom Meighan's dead-on Neil Finn impression. It is the best song Crowded House never released. In somewhat of a departure from their previous two records, 48:13was produced by the band themselves. By ditching outsider celebrity producers they have allowed themselves to fall back on old habits without interference, both good and bad. When you are a successful, world-famous rock band who do you listen to: the fair-weather fans who want you to retread your previous paths, or the loyalists who wait in eager anticipation of your next move? If you are Kasabian perhaps you say “to hell” with both of them and just go off doing your own thing. Perhaps you make an album like this and name it after it's run time just because you can.

Rating: B

Recommended tracks: Explodes, eez-eh

Album review: Jack White - Lazaretto

Jack White the Third is undeniably one of the preeminent architects of the modern music era. At the turn of the millennium he was pivotal in bringing analogue rock and roll worship back into the pop culture vernacular. He has since found additional success with both The Raconteurs (his friendlier, sing-along quartet) and The Dead Weather (blast furnace blues). None of this even touches on the fantastic work he has done with his world record-setting Third Man Records. As brightly as he has shone in each of these separate projects he still finds the time to exist apart from them all as a solo artist. Mr White has certainly worked hard to be where he is today.

His entire schtick as a musical persona all these years has been the balancing of two contrasting elements: contemporary vs retro, guitar hero vs balladeer, lover vs fighter, artist vs label, black vs white. In his past work one of each of these pairs tended to win out over the other. The key difference between White solo and White as part of an outfit is that when he takes time to be by himself both of those poles tend to get a good working out. When those two contrasting elements butt heads we as the audience are treated to some of his most engaging work. This is where we find ourselves on Lazaretto, his second solo record.

The title track makes for a picture-perfect lead single and helps to demonstrate this point. If it had been released ten years ago it would have been a shoe-in for a garish iPod commercial (do you remember those?). The rubber-banding guitars and squelching bassline is instantly identifiable as belonging to White. The breakdown near then end is everything a thirteen year old's six-string fantasies are made of. It is manic, joyous, and full of grit. Such a soaring high is anchored by 'Temporary Ground' which follows. Here we have a straight-laced country rocker that features some honeyed vocals and fine fiddle-work from Lillie Mae Rische. One concept is rapidly followed by another, quite different entity, and another, and so forth. You never really get to catch your balance properly with this album.

When a song called 'Would you Fight for My Love?' comes along it can very hard not using it as lens through which we view White's tumultuous personal life. References to love making and enduring unspecified pain seem too specific to have just been plucked out of the air. Confessional or otherwise, this cinematic, dramatic piece has a real bite to it. The rote 'Alone in My House' doesn't fare so well unfortunately. While not a bad song at all it clings to the melodrama just a little to tightly. 

Is this all sounding a bit dour for your liking? Do you wish White would cheer up already and give us something fun to dance to? Then sink your teeth into some 'That Black Bat Licorice', complete with wacky vamps and sugary grooves to spare. Or maybe the off-the-wall instrumental 'Highball Stepper' is more your speed. In case you haven't figured it out yet, Lazaretto contains a staggering number of ideas, themes, and motifs all crammed together haphazardly. This makes for a very uneven listening experience but one can't help but wonder if that was the point of the exercise to begin with. What you have here is a series of tributes to the things that White loves the most. Country music swagger, tragic love triangles, pristine Americana, murder ballads, colossal riffs, and spaghetti western weirdness are all well represented on this album.

If you were going to try and draw a parallel between Lazaretto and any of Jack White's previous work I think you are likely to land upon The White Stripes awkward finale, Icky Thump. The two records share a wild, anything goes aesthetic and neither were afraid of kicking against resistance in the name of progress. We all know for a fact that White can churn out faceless, by-the-books twang rock without breaking a sweat. The process by which he can stretch and grow beyond that as an artist involves releasing albums like this. They are an opportunity to vent all of the odds and ends that never fitted anywhere else and if we are paying attention something magical might happen. This is where we find ourselves on Lazaretto.

Rating: B+

Recommended tracks: Would you Fight for My Love?, I Think I Found a Culprit