Let's go back just a bit, though. Because it's not like Mastodon was the first band, or even the most notable one, to change their sound in a meaningful way.
For the purpose of this piece, though, I'm going to focus on two other bands that seem particularly relevant. Those bands are Rush and Metallica.
In 1980, Rush released their seventh full-length studio album, Permanent Waves. Prior to that album, they had been at the apex of their creativity. Having had tremendous success with their breakthrough 2112, they were given license to basically do whatever they wanted without fear of interference. The resulting albums, A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres, were connected by a conceptual thread and exemplified the best of the "progressive" music that Rush would record in the 70's.
Of course, as anyone who watched the documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage would attest, the band weren't exactly fans of albums five and six. The recording process, while organic and free-flowing, was also problematic. Apparently, it was so problematic that the band agreed never to do anything like that again. Not only does the documentary skip over A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres, it's like the band doesn't want to acknowledge them in a positive light either.
That brings us back around to Permanent Waves. It presents a scaled-back, simplified version of the band. True, there are progressive tracks and ideas, but they've largely been limited to appearing in "Jacob's Ladder" and "Natural Science". The other four songs are variations on popular music in Rush's inimitable style, using what they learned from their past experience and building on it with new elements.
Even the two "progressive" tracks I named in the previous paragraph show signs of what one might call "maturity". They're not wildly flailing into the unknown like they did on "The Necromancer" with its lengthy solos and weird ambiance. "Jacob's Ladder" might be a bit loose, but it is not without a clear structure. Similarly, the three parts that comprise "Natural Science" fit together like a glove.
And despite the stripped-down nature of Permanent Waves, the band's musicianship remains unchanged.
Metallica's story is even more well-known. Over the course of their first four albums, they took thrash from being virtually unknown to damn near the top of the mountain. They weren't just a metal band, they were a force in the 80's.
Then in 1991 they released the Black Album, stripping down their sound along with their musicianship.
The consequences of that decision still resonate today.
But the first four albums in their canon produced plenty of classic material. And in their own way, they're as influential to the genre (for their time) as Sabbath was in the 70's.
I guess that makes the Black Album even more perplexing. It's not lacking in good songs, but the approach the band took is questionable. Metallica was a thrash band who had pushed limits, but was now playing it safe and largely mid-tempo or slower. There were still some interesting rhythms at play, but the production amplified the drums (easily the least impactful part of the band's arsenal) and pushed Hetfield's vocals to the front.
As I wrote at the top, Mastodon's development parallels that of Metallica, in a general sense. Mastodon was never a thrash band and close inspection of the contents of their first four albums will yield as many similarities as contradictions when compared to the first four Metallica albums. So the analysis is intended to examine these works in a general way.
What is undeniable is that Mastodon developed and subtly changed their music through their first four full-length releases. Clean vocals were introduced on Blood Mountain and have become the dominant paradigm in their newest releases. Progressive elements were introduced on Leviathan, reaching their zenith on Crack the Skye before being abandoned almost entirely.
Basically, while The Hunter is not equivalent to either Permanent Waves or Metallica, its basic function is, if not the same, eerily similar.
What The Hunter did for Mastodon was provide them another route to travel. Crack the Skye will most likely be thought of as their most "progressive" album; in every way other than song structures, which are too similar to one another and too repetitive to be truly "progressive", even I can agree with such sentiment.
My main issue with The Hunter, and as such, all future output from the band, given their public stance, is that the musicianship is diluted. The focus on heavy riffing is almost entirely absent. Brann Dailor's drumming, once a powerful force that put him on-par (or at least in the neighborhood) with great drummers of previous generations, has been neutered. The clean vocals which were a nice bonus on Blood Mountain are now the norm instead of the exception. It's not just that they sing more than they used to, either, but that they do so with such obvious "stadium-ready" aspirations. These are no longer subtle melodies that are pleasing to the ear. They're "hooks" which attempt to drag the listener along, whether he/she wants to go or not.
It is the incidence of choruses that I find most disappointing in Mastodon's recent output. In previewing Once More 'Round the Sun, chorus sections are not only used frequently, they are often the backbone of the song. For a band who plied their trade based on heavy riffing, energetic drumming, and harsh vocals, this is quite the about-face.
The clean vocals that are now the norm have shown little to no improvement, either. So while they are being more ambitious in their usage of clean vocals, there has been no effort to make them more pleasant to the ear. Thus, to my ears, they sound considerably off-putting.
Mastodon has traded in their strengths for weaknesses. I'm all for getting as many people on the wagon as possible, but it is the way Mastodon has chosen to go about this that I cannot and will not abide. They have also given up entirely on the notion of harsh vocals. Clearly, their future development is not something I need to monitor closely.
Of course, it's easy to say that, but much harder to actually do it.
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