And now, I shall unveil it(with some help from my family for picking up some heavy duty extensions cords).
My Power Trio:
Heater One.
Heater Two.
Heater Three.
Between these three machines, I can sleep somewhat warmly. According to the digital readouts of Heater One and Heater Two, it's about 60 degrees now.
In a weird twist of fate, the next installment in my series of 2006 hidden musical gems is Mastodon's Blood Mountain, and I originally wrote this while freezing(as noted in the text). So, enjoy!
Something is going to leap out of my closet, I thought. Something is going to leap out of my dark, cold closet - a giant wolf, like the one from The Never Ending Story - and tear my throat out...and it will fucking rock. Listening to Mastodon's Blood Mountain in my unheated, cold dark apartment, these were the kind of thoughts I was having. Maybe it was a mild hypothermia induced delirium, or maybe it was just how immersing Mastodon's brand of heavy metal can be.
Blood Mountain is a concept album based around the trek up, well, a mountain, and all the scary shit you would endure and encounter. Upon first listening to the record, this might be hard to pick up. Bassist Troy Sanders' vocals are not the easiest to understand, especially when they wander too far into cliched "Cookie Monster" territory(Sanders actually sings on most tracks, though).
A feeling of eminent doom is layered throughout songs like "The Wolf Is Loose", "Sleeping Giant", and "Circle of Cysquatch". A Cysquatch, incidentally and for the curious, is "a one-eyed Sasquatch that can see into the future", according to Sanders. You know, kind of like the cyclops from Krull, only with lots more hair and a bad-ass soundtrack. One thing I love about bands like Mastodon; they take shit like this very seriously. Another thing I love about bands like Mastodon is they really, really play the hell out of their instruments. Not many bands can stand up to Mastodon's technical skill, from Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher's shredding guitars to Brann Dailor's mind-blowing drumming. They aren't afraid of diversifying their sound either, ranging from the blazing, Iron Maiden sounding epics to the eerie, melody driven songs featuring rich vocal harmonies, echoing Alice N Chains.
Even with my heat out, I was managing with a space heater. While I was listening to "Bladecatcher", though, the space heater shorted out the electricity to my room, right at the part when the song went over the edge with an assault of bizarre sharp sounding "vocals"(or at least I assumed it was the heater, maybe the fuse box just couldn't take one of Mastodon's more extreme tracks). Actually, the problem wasn't with the fuse so I listened to the rest of the album on my iPod, and as Mastodon blasted very epic, immense, unforgiving music it fit perfectly with the bleak white walls of my room, barely lit by the dim light of an overcast winter's day. I didn't know perfect music to freeze to death in your apartment existed, outside of whatever the hell was on the St. Elmo's Fire soundtrack.
Blood Mountain is a superbly constructed album. No song feels out of place, and the record not only holds up to repeated listens but actually makes you want to peel back it's dark, snowy layers. For their first record on new label Reprise, Mastodon hasn't dumbed anything down, in fact, this might be their best work
In a weird twist of fate, the next installment in my series of 2006 hidden musical gems is Mastodon's Blood Mountain, and I originally wrote this while freezing(as noted in the text). So, enjoy!
Artist: Mastodon
Album Title: Blood Mountain
Record Label: Reprise/Relapse
Release Date: 9.12.2006
Rating: 8.7
Bands Web Site: http://www.mastodonrocks.com/main.html
Sound: Heavy Metal, Alternative Metal
Similar Artists: Killswitch Engage, Iron Maiden, Tool
Something is going to leap out of my closet, I thought. Something is going to leap out of my dark, cold closet - a giant wolf, like the one from The Never Ending Story - and tear my throat out...and it will fucking rock. Listening to Mastodon's Blood Mountain in my unheated, cold dark apartment, these were the kind of thoughts I was having. Maybe it was a mild hypothermia induced delirium, or maybe it was just how immersing Mastodon's brand of heavy metal can be.
Blood Mountain is a concept album based around the trek up, well, a mountain, and all the scary shit you would endure and encounter. Upon first listening to the record, this might be hard to pick up. Bassist Troy Sanders' vocals are not the easiest to understand, especially when they wander too far into cliched "Cookie Monster" territory(Sanders actually sings on most tracks, though).
A feeling of eminent doom is layered throughout songs like "The Wolf Is Loose", "Sleeping Giant", and "Circle of Cysquatch". A Cysquatch, incidentally and for the curious, is "a one-eyed Sasquatch that can see into the future", according to Sanders. You know, kind of like the cyclops from Krull, only with lots more hair and a bad-ass soundtrack. One thing I love about bands like Mastodon; they take shit like this very seriously. Another thing I love about bands like Mastodon is they really, really play the hell out of their instruments. Not many bands can stand up to Mastodon's technical skill, from Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher's shredding guitars to Brann Dailor's mind-blowing drumming. They aren't afraid of diversifying their sound either, ranging from the blazing, Iron Maiden sounding epics to the eerie, melody driven songs featuring rich vocal harmonies, echoing Alice N Chains.
Even with my heat out, I was managing with a space heater. While I was listening to "Bladecatcher", though, the space heater shorted out the electricity to my room, right at the part when the song went over the edge with an assault of bizarre sharp sounding "vocals"(or at least I assumed it was the heater, maybe the fuse box just couldn't take one of Mastodon's more extreme tracks). Actually, the problem wasn't with the fuse so I listened to the rest of the album on my iPod, and as Mastodon blasted very epic, immense, unforgiving music it fit perfectly with the bleak white walls of my room, barely lit by the dim light of an overcast winter's day. I didn't know perfect music to freeze to death in your apartment existed, outside of whatever the hell was on the St. Elmo's Fire soundtrack.
Blood Mountain is a superbly constructed album. No song feels out of place, and the record not only holds up to repeated listens but actually makes you want to peel back it's dark, snowy layers. For their first record on new label Reprise, Mastodon hasn't dumbed anything down, in fact, this might be their best work
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