What a great year for metal shows in my area! We had Iron Maiden, Meshuggah, Megadeth, and Mastodon in the area in one year, which is a very nice showing, even if two of them played the same show. The last time I had a chance to see Mastodon, it was ruined by the weather. There was a tornado in the area the day of the show, and the Mastodon and Clutch show that night was canceled. I was crushed, as Mastodon was my favorite band at the time, so I was absolutely thrilled when I heard they were coming back to the area.
There were two bands on the bill, as Mastodon was accompanied by Russian Circles, and instrumental metal band of which I had not heard before the show. It's always interesting to pop into a show as a complete novice, although it doesn't always work well with metal, as producing clean live sound in these situations can be challenging with the high volume and heavy distortion. These factors make higher tones and softer dynamics difficult to hear, so I find that many times my imagination is filling in the gaps that my ears miss during these shows. With a new band, this is impossible, as I don't even have a mental record of what the song "should" sound like.
Russian Circles actually communicated their brand of music pretty well, however. They were fortunate enough to have few band members, and pretty nicely produced sound to make each instrument distinctly different in tone. It was a bass player, guitarist, and drummer, although their was clear utilization of backtrack on most songs. This is mostly fine by me, but it may bother some. The bassist in particular had excellent tone, and was a notable sonic presence on the songs, something I find lacking in most metal.
Their musical style was largely one of building layer upon layer of music, and then strip it back down, certainly flying far from the verse-chorus-verse song structure familiar to most. In terms of metal genre, they ran an interesting gamut of tones, from more droning shoegaze style to doom to thrash. Many of the riffs built nicely to a head, and came back down satisfactorily, but others ran on far too long and were completely uninteresting. Perhaps the biggest weakness of the band was the drummer. In this style of music, you're dealing with lots of melodic and rhythmic repetition from guitar and bass, necessitating variation and creativity on the part of the drummer to help to build dynamics and tension leading into your next change of riff. The drummer for Russian circles did a nice job of using dynamics to build tension, but his fills between riffs were either completely off rhythm at times or awkwardly phrased. To a novice to their music, which of these alternatives was reality lacked substance, so the drumming could definitely use work.
I'd say that on the whole, I didn't care for Russian Circles much, but they did have their captivating moments, and they have potential.
But I was really there for the all-mighty Mastodon, masterful purveyors of crushing progressive sludge for more than a decade. And they really were excellent. I came in imagining that there would be a rough 50/50 split between older and newer tracks, as defined by anything from The Hunter on to the present day exemplifying the newer, less proggy and heavy Mastodon.
While I enjoy the newer Mastodon, definitely prefer Crack the Skye and before, so I was hoping for a 50/50 split. I know the guys in Mastodon are a little tired of the older stuff, and have every right to be. It must be boring to play the old songs over and over, and your creative output as a 25 year old is almost necessarily going to be different than that of a 40 year old. But I appreciate the attempts bands make to play their classic tracks, and Mastodon did a pretty nice job here.
The most represented record was Crack the Skye, with probably 4 tracks played. I was pretty surprised by this, as this record is an extremely conceptually based record, but the tracks worked well on their own. After Crack the Skye, however, no record really got a preferential balance of the playlist, with every record having at least one track played. I really hate that they didn't play Blood and Thunder, Hearts Alive, or March of the Fire Ants, my three favorite Mastodon songs, but Hearts Alive probably doesn't work as a concert song, and the other two are probably tough on the voice.
The guys in the band were fantastic instrumentally. Bill laid down an excellent rhythm guitar, Troy had a great stage presence and provided a noticeable and interesting bass, but the two highlights were definitely the two guys I came to see, Brent and Bran. Brent was every bit the sloppy drunk guitar god I was hoping to see. His solos were fantastic, he pulled off all of the tricky leads you forget about in Mastodon songs, and he even improvised a fair bit on the solos. He's a one of a kind personality, and you don't quickly forget him (note: he's the one in the Dodgers uniform in the picture above). Bran (the one in the crazy suit) was truly masterful on drums. His performance was great, and he even played around a bit with established beats and fills to provide a unique and different listening experience for concert attendees. And he did all of it while singing on several songs!
Speaking of singing, this was the clear weakness of Mastodon. None of them are professional singers primarily, and three of the four sang during the concert. Bran was best, with a unique voice that was pretty good most of the time. Troy was second best, as he occasionally got a touch pitchy, but was there most of the time with enthusiasm. Brent was the worst, as he was notably pitchy at times, with one chorus were he was several half steps away from his intended destination. But it was actually better than I've heard in recorded versions of their live singing before, so they've been working on it and picking songs carefully that they can perform live.
All in all, I'd highly recommend you go catch Mastodon and Russian Circles on the remnant of their tour. It's a good time, and Mastodon in particular really brings it to good effect.
-TRO
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