Blood Mountain (album)

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Blood Mountain
Blood Mountain cover
Studio album by Mastodon
Released Flag of the United Kingdom September 11, 2006
Flag of the United States September 12, 2006
Recorded December 2005 - April 2006
Genre Sludge metal
Progressive metal
Length 68:09
Label Warner Bros. Records
Reprise Records
Producer Matt Bayles
Mastodon
Professional reviews
Mastodon chronology
Call of the Mastodon
(2006)		 Blood Mountain
(2006)

Blood Mountain is the third full-length studio album by metal band Mastodon. The recording of the album finished in April, 2006 and it was released on September 11 in the UK and September 12, 2006 in North America.

Like Mastodon's previous studio work Leviathan, Blood Mountain is a concept album. According to bassist Troy Sanders, "It's about climbing up a mountain and the different things that can happen to you when you're stranded on a mountain, in the woods, and you're lost. You're starving, hallucinating, running into strange creatures. You're being hunted. It's about that whole struggle." [1]

The album includes guest appearances by Scott Kelly of Neurosis on "Crystal Skull", Joshua Homme of Queens of the Stone Age on "Colony of Birchmen", as well as keyboardist Isaiah "Ikey" Owens and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala of The Mars Volta on "Pendulous Skin" and "Siberian Divide", respectively.

The first video "The Wolf Is Loose", has been released on YouTube. The second video, "Colony of Birchmen", was exclusively released on mp3.com on Tuesday, October 24, 2006. It is now circulating the web and is on YouTube. The song received a nomination for Best Metal Performance at the 49th annual Grammy Awards.[2] "Colony of Birchmen" became the band's first hit song on the radio, reaching #33 on the Mainstream Rock Charts.[3]

The first single, "Capillarian Crest", can be heard on the band's official website and along with the track "Crystal Skull" on its MySpace page. Its status as the second single, or a single at all, has yet to be confirmed. "Crystal Skull" was also recently included on a "Best of 2006" compilation CD given away free with issue 1122 of Kerrang! magazine, branded as an exclusive on the back cover.

Guitarist Bill Kelliher considers this album to represent the earth element.[4] Vocalist/bassist Troy Sanders calls this "sonically the best album we have done."

The band's emphasis on clean, melodic vocals instead of the harsher vocals that the band used on their early work continues to grow on this album.

The album leaked in full on August 6, 2006 at P2P networks. The album in full could be streamed at the band's MySpace page a few days prior to the release.

Blood Mountain debuted on #32 spot in Billboard 200 best selling album charts, marking the highest debut in the band's career. By December 2006, the album had sold more than 65,000 copies in the U.S. alone according to their website [1].

Contents

Blood Mountain is considered by critics and the public alike as one of the essential metal releases of the decade.[citation needed] Magazines such as Metal Hammer and Kerrang! have stated that it is every bit as good as the band's previous album Leviathan, if not better. The album has also charted in many websites and magazines 2006 countdowns. The band's first single off the album, "Capillarian Crest", was ranked #27 in Rolling Stone magazine Top 100 songs of 2006 [5]. Blood Mountain was ranked 9th in Rolling Stone Top 50 Albums of 2006 [6]/2, and 42nd in Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums of 2006.[7]

Blood Mountain was voted the best album of 2006 in the UK Metal Hammer magazine end-of year polls. It was also rated the 17th greatest metal album of all time by a countdown recently done by gaming website IGN.[8] However, the album is not without its detractors, as The Guardian states that the album is unorganized and feels as if the tracks are far longer than they actually are, which resulted in the 1/5 rating.

  1. "The Wolf Is Loose" – 3:34
  2. "Crystal Skull" (featuring Scott Kelly) – 3:27
  3. "Sleeping Giant" – 5:36
  4. "Capillarian Crest" – 4:25
  5. "Circle of Cysquatch" – 3:19
  6. "Bladecatcher" – 3:20
  7. "Colony of Birchmen" (featuring Joshua Homme) – 4:19
  8. "Hunters of the Sky" – 3:52
  9. "Hand of Stone" – 3:30
  10. "This Mortal Soil" – 5:00
  11. "Siberian Divide" (featuring Cedric Bixler-Zavala) – 5:32
  12. "Pendulous Skin" (featuring Isaiah "Ikey" Owens) – 22:15

  • The main character is in search of the Crystal Skull which he hopes to place at the top of Blood Mountain.[9]
  • The main character has been thought to be a Werewolf-type being - 'The Wolf is Loose' being the start of the concept and then video for 'Colony of Birchmen' depicting animated Werewolf shape-shifting sequence
  • In an interview with bassist Troy Sanders it was revealed that a Cysquatch is "a one-eyed Sasquatch that can see into the future."[10]
  • In an interview with bassist Troy Sanders it was revealed that in "Siberian Divide" the main character is "caught in a blizzard where [he] becomes frostbitten and frozen and [he's] starving and starts to hallucinate. [Then] this snow queen appears before him and tells him it's OK to start eating his own flesh. And then he starts to do that. Then an aurora borealis appears, and he thinks it's God, and it starts affecting this crystal skull he's been toting up the mountain, and it starts to warm his body. That, coupled with the knowledge of the aurora borealis being God, gives him the strength to start to carry on again."[citation needed]

The album's last song, "Pendulous Skin", contains a secret "fan letter" from Josh Homme, who provided guest vocals on the album. At 21:25, he says: "Dear Mastodon: My name is Joshua. I'm a big fan from Southern Cal. Really diggin' on your new scene. That's why I hope you don't mind when I got your new demos for your new CD, I had to sing parts on them and send them to you as a tribute. I hope you're not mad about me also uploading them onto the Internet. But hell, it seems like you guys are so cool that you might dig something just like that. Sincerely, your fan, Joshua M. Homme. P.S., Keep it real...REAL (studio effects are used)....*laughter*....REAL." When asked about the message in a Pitchfork Media interivew, Homme said, "I was just fucking with them. Then they asked if they could put that on the end of their record, and I was like, 'Yeah.' I did the vocal [for "Colony of Birchmen"] and sent it back to them, and that message was before the song started."[11]

The title "Colony of Birchmen" is an homage to the song "The Colony of Slippermen" by progressive rock group Genesis, a band drummer Brann Dailor has been known to appreciate.[citation needed] There is also a minor consistency error in the video for this song, where vocalist Brent Hinds is using two different types of microphones between shots.

Year Chart Position
2006 The Billboard 200 32

Year Single Chart Position
2006 Colony of Birchmen US Mainstream Rock 32

  1. ^ http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2006/04/2604.cfm
  2. ^ Blabbermouth.net. "SLAYER, LAMB OF GOD, STONE SOUR Among GRAMMY Nominees", December 7, 2006, at Blabbermouth.net; last accessed December 7, 2006.
  3. ^ http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/retrieve_chart_history.do?model.vnuArtistId=472716&model.vnuAlbumId=793218
  4. ^ MASTODON (TROY SANDERS/BILL KELIHER) INTERVIEW. Terrorverlag GbR Musik Magazin (2006-10-11). Retrieved on 2007-05-28.
  5. ^ Rolling Stone Magazine. Top 100 songs of 2006.
  6. ^ http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/12800635/the_top_50_albums_of_2006
  7. ^ http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/40007/Staff_List_Top_50_Albums_of_2006
  8. ^ http://music.ign.com/articles/755/755929p3.html
  9. ^ http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2006/04/2604.cfm
  10. ^ http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2006/04/2604.cfm
  11. ^ http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/42335-qotsas-homme-talks-new-lp-motivations-pirates
v • d • e
Mastodon
Brann Dailor · Brent Hinds · Bill Kelliher · Troy Sanders
Eric Saner
Studio albums Remission · Leviathan · Blood Mountain
Extended plays Lifesblood
Compilations Call of the Mastodon
DVDs The Workhorse Chronicles
Songs "The Wolf is Loose" · "Colony of Birchmen" · "Cut You up with a Linoleum Knife"
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Mountain_%28album%29"
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