Mastodon – Remission (2002/2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 50:30 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Metal, Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Relapse Records

On the heels of the release of Mastodon‘s latest album, Once More ‘Round the Sun, comes word that their debut album will be reissued. The deluxe version of Remission will be released Aug. 5 via Relapse Records (watch preview trailer above).

Mastodon exploded onto the scene in 2002 with their debut LP Remission, a record that would immediately establish them as one of the most important bands in the history of heavy music.  Combining an unparalleled level of musicianship together with songwriting sophistication that simply did not exist amongst their peers, were it to be initially released today Remission would still be nothing short of mindblowing.  Over a decade after its release Remission remains one of the most important titles in Relapse’s rich catalog, and it is with that appreciation that the label is proud to present a super-deluxe version of this classic record put together with the cooperation of the band themselves.  The album has been fully remixed by original producer and engineer Matt Bayles  and remastered by Ed Brooks at RFI. 

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Mastodon – Medium Rarities (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:10:54 minutes | 857 MB | Genre: Metal, Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

When Mastodon invite you to go deep, you best bring an extra supply of oxygen. Given the place the Atlanta behemoth came from, a primeval, subterranean metal underworld, the prospect of plummeting even further within is almost enough to bring on a dose of the bends.

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Mastodon – Hushed and Grim (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:26:24 minutes | 1,16 GB | Genre: Rock, Metal
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

The double album is a high-risk, high-reward exercise that many artists have broken their teeth on. How do you make a long piece of content both digestible and exciting when you have so much to say? Mastodon does not seem to have troubled itself with such questions or to have been daunted by the challenge. They just did what came naturally. Hushed and Grim is first and foremost a tribute to Nick John, a close friend and manager who died after a painful battle with cancer in 2018. The four musicians thought he was a man who richly deserved an album. This was the source of their inspiration, which gave birth to 15 songs spread over almost an hour and a half.

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Mastodon – Emperor Of Sand (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 51:12 minutes | 642 MB | Genre: Metal, Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

Emperor Of Sand finds Mastodon returning to a deeply imaginative and complex conceptual storyline that ponders the nature of time. Threading together the myth of a man sentenced to death in a majestically malevolent desert, the band conjures the grains of a musical and lyrical odyssey slipping quickly through a cosmic hourglass.

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Mastodon – Crack the Skye (2009)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 50:03 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Rock, Metal
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

First off, a warning: the best way to encounter Mastodon’s Crack the Skye for the first time is with headphones. Reported to be a mystical — if crunchy — concept record about Tsarist Russia, this is actually the most involved set of tracks, both in terms of music and production, the band has ever recorded. “Ambitious” is a word that regularly greets Mastodon — after all, they did an entire album based on Moby Dick — but until now, that adjective may have been an understatement. There is so much going on in these seven tracks that it’s difficult to get it all in a listen or two (one of the reasons that close encounters of the headphone kind are recommended). It may seem strange that the band worked with Bruce Springsteen producer Brendan O’Brien this time out, but it turns out to be a boon for both parties: for the band because O’Brien is obsessive about sounds, textures, and finding spaces in just the right places; for O’Brien because in his work with the Boss he’s all but forgotten what the sounds of big roaring electric guitars and overdriven thudding drums can sound like. The guitar arrangements on tracks like “Divinations” and “The Czar,” while wildly different from one another, are the most intricate, melodically complex things the band has ever recorded. There are also more subtle moments such as the menacing, brooding, and ultimately downer cuts such as “The Last Baron,” where tempos are slowed and keyboards enter the fray and stretch the time, adding a much more multidimensional sense of atmosphere and texture. Still, Crack the Skye rocks, and hard! Its shifting tempos and key structures are far more meaty and forceful than most prog metal, and menace and cosmological speculation exist in equal measure, providing for a spot-on sense of balance. Some of the hardcore death metal conservatives may have trouble with this set, but the album wasn’t recorded for them — or anybody else. Crack the Skye is the sound of a band stretching itself to its limits and exploring the depth of its collective musical identity as a series of possibilities rather than as signatures. And yes, that is a good thing.

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Mastodon – Cold Dark Place EP (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 21:51 minutes | 263 MB | Genre: Progressive Metal
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Reprise

A new EP featuring four previously unreleased tracks via Reprise Records. Three of the tracks, “North Side Star,” “Blue Walsh,” and “Cold Dark Place,” were recorded during the sessions for Mastodon’s 2014 album Once More ‘Round The Sunand were produced by Nick Raskulinecz. A fourth track, “Toe to Toes,” was recorded during the sessions for the band’s most recent album, 2016’s Emperor of Sand, and was produced by Brendan O’Brien.

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