Throughout the years, Mastodon have seen a lot of tragedy and this in turn served as inspiration and a way of dealing with grief and sadness. Their magnum opus Crack The Skye touches upon the death of Brann Dailor's sister who sadly took her own life at age of 14. Their follow-up The Hunter is unfortunately no different due to Brent Hinds' brother losing his life during a hunting trip. Yet, despite all of this, The Hunter doesn't revel in sadness, it marches forwards and remains to this day their weirdest, most uneven and clumsy record to date - and I fucking love it. Time to open up the vaults because today we're celebrating the tenth anniversary of this misunderstood scorcher. Joining me is fellow Mastodon aficionado - monsieur Alex Parkinson of Burnt Coffee Reviews whose thoughts I'll share after my ramblings. I am sure his opinions will align with mine and that there'll be no shocking twists that will make this paragraph look stupid.
Now as I mentioned, The Hunter is a stark departure from their previous records. There's no over arching concept to speak of, no proggy epics, it's just thirteen (fifteen if we're looking at the deluxe edition) songs waiting to be experienced and let me tell you, the first time I heard this, I didn't quite "get" it. Being high on my newfound love for prog, I wanted a new Crack The Skye and not a seemingly random collection of every Mastodon sound thus far with some novelties. But with the unavoidable passage of time, The Hunter started creeping up on me, slowly but surely overtaking Once More Round The Sun, Emperor Of Sand, Remission and... Leviathan? Wait what? How?
Well it has to do with everything I mentioned thus far but I haven't done a good job of explaining what that exactly entails. Let's start from the top with "Black Tongue". Absolute fucking banger and the most "evil" Mastodon ever sounded. It's like something of Leviathan with those gnarly thicc riffs and Troy howling away but with the adventurous, proggy edge of Crack The Skye. And then near the middle mark this crazy atmospheric yet super "active" bridge arrives. It grabs your attention immediately but just as you adjust it ends.
This is the first sign of all the glorious weirdness The Hunter has. Granted not all of it works but for my two cents, most does, very well in fact. They vary from expansive atmospheric passages like on the gorgeous title track to old school 60's sci-fi inspired effects found on "Bedazzled Fingernails". What's interesting is that among all that chaos there are tracks that sees the band tap into melancholy like never before. The aforementioned title track, stunning closer "The Sparrow" are Mastodon at their most personal, the former especially so because it celebrates the life of Brad Hinds. Brent and Troy's vocal performances are spectacular, both channeling their inner blues in completely different manner. Brent especially and he matches that energy with stunning solos, honestly, the whole record has so many brilliant guitar moments from both him and eternally overlooked Bill Kelliher.
On the complete opposite of the spectrum we've got "Octopus Has No Friends" and "Bedazzled Fingernails", two highly energetic and complex songs reminiscent of Blood Mountain but with a newfound accessible edge if that makes sense. "Bedazzled Fingernails" is especially interesting as it bridges the gap between prog metal insanity, sludge and psychedelia. The timbre with which Troy sings here has never been repeated since and the same could be said about 60's inspired sci-fi effects that I mentioned. That is if we don't look at Brann Dailor's other band Arcadea which is straight up psychedelic electronic madness and its roots can be traced to this very record.
After all "Creature Lives" is a thing and as it turns out, it's one of my all time favorite Mastodon tracks. Funnily enough, it's one of the first songs that clicked with me. This is gonna sound extremely cringe but back in high school I related to this song and its lost protagonist. That feeling of not belonging and being sad about it is peak teenage angst but even without that bias, I still feel this is an excellent song. The weirdest one they wrote to this day but you can still hear it's absolutely them, especially when that amazing solo hits. My gods what a piece of work that is, easily one of Hinds' best. It perfectly captures the mix of melancholia, triumph and just pure elation and sends off the track in stunning fashion.
But as much as I love these experimental flourishes, they do halter the pace at times or miss their mark. "All The Heavy Lifting" feels off until the midpoint when it picks up speed and intensity. "Dry Bone Valley" is unlucky because it follows up the monstrous title track which kinda blows it out of the water. "Thickening" starts off really creatively with intricate guitar interplay and triplet-heavy drum groove before Hinds' strangely haunting yet comforting verse arrives. It's great stuff until the chorus which is the worst part of the song. Such a shame too considering how damn cool Brent sounds here.
Come to think of it, everyone does and even though they're not as technically "clean" as on their following records, The Hunter trumps all their other releases in terms of sheer variety and experimentation. Explains the inconsistency but I find it charming and raw in a way. After all this is a result from months of grief and coping and I am very glad it's just as jovial as it is introspective.
I could go on and fangirl about "Spectrelight", ambient masterclass "Stargasm", deluxe edition banger "Deathbound" or the ending mantra on "The Sparrow" which was the first thing I played after a breakup but seeing how this is a collaborative piece, let's set the stage for Alex. See (read) you in a jiff!
Given the opportunity to retroactively review a record as big and controversial as The Hunter, I think it's important to give my background on it. I got into Mastodon in high school a little after Crack the Skye came out, and they quickly became one of my all-time favorites. They were the band that eased me into harsh vocals since I was more of a prog rock dork at the time. After spending a ton of time with their first 4 albums, I found myself time and time again returning to the well that is the Mastodon Cinematic Universe. Torche, Baroness, High on Fire, Red Fang, The Ocean, Dillinger Escape Plan, Melvins, Clutch, etc. - a very expansive collection more worthy of the moniker MCU. So it's safe to say Mastodon really shaped my musical trajectory for many years to come.
I'm of the fairly common opinion that Mastodon's 2000's output is significantly better than their 2010's output. That doesn't mean I'm a Remission truther though; I thoroughly enjoyed and defended each of the band's latter day releases as they came out. In hindsight, I definitely gazed upon those 2010's albums with fanboy-tinted glasses, but being so enamored with the band it was hard not to at the time. I'm still very excited for when Hushed and Grim drops too, but as I've matured as a music fan (god, what a lame string of words to type out…) I like to think I will be going into it less biased.
So after all that time with The Hunter, where do I stand? My quick take is the first 3 tracks plus the last 3 tracks would result in an undeniably strong EP. Outside of that, "Octopus Has No Friends" is the only other track I still get any replay value out of. But let's not start this off too sour. Instead, let's learn from the masters, as Mastodon always starts their albums on a high note. "Black Tongue" is almost as good as it gets - probably their best album opener aside from "Blood and Thunder". This song marked Troy Sanders' highest notes vocally (figuratively and literally) at the time, ringing in a new era of vocal prowess for the band. I still get goosebumps from his performance, and that solo from Bill Kelliher really brings this banger home.
"Curl of the Burl" remains controversial in cysquatch circles to this day. In hindsight, this song sounds like black metal compared to later singles like "Show Yourself" and "Toe to Toes" (to throw in a little more heat, I'll admit here that I am a "Show Yourself" apologist, and "Toe to Toes" is easily the best Masto-song of their 2010s era). Parentheticals aside, this track's catchiness and dumb fun still haven't expired 10 years later. Hell, that triplet drum fill Brann Dailor does towards the end still gets me pumped. The party keeps on goin' with the wild beast that is "Blasteroid", but it doesn't last much longer than that...
Like yours truly, The Hunter suffers from a flabby midsection. The belt buckle starts to give out with "Stargasm". Sure, the main instrumental motif is nice, but the middling verses* and lack of any bridge prevent the song from reaching its full potential. This theme of unmet potential prevails for a while as the tracklist progresses. None of these songs are bad, in fact they all have at least one really cool section in each of them, but the misses are obvious too. "All the Heavy Lifting" falls short of an anthemic chorus for example, while "Thickening" just feels like a B-side centered around a dumb lyrical concept.
I loved "Dry Bone Valley" when it came out, but most of that was due to the novelty of hearing Brann's lovely clean vocals. However, his vocals on subsequent albums would completely blow this song out of the water. I don't even have the ire for "Creature Lives" that many do. The song is just kinda there - it's fun in the context of the album, but it's novelty runs off quickly.
As mentioned earlier, Mastodon returns with top tier material towards the end of the album, starting with "Spectrelight". Troy's vocals are on par with returning champ Scott Kelly's, and the breakneck riffage complements both singers perfectly. "Bedazzled Fingernails" really nails the freaky pop prog thing the band was attempting earlier in the tracklist, while the beautifully solemn mantra of "The Sparrow" is a stunning way to wind things down.
So yeah, that's where I stand with The Hunter. To give a peak at my personal Mastodon album rankings, this one falls dead last in the list. But I like all of the band's albums, I am still a fanboy after all, so putting it last is no condemnation of the album whatsoever. I won't parade out the tacky "most bands would kill to have an album like this" line metal music journalists love to use, because Mastodon's successors certainly have done better than this (you guys like Hyborian?). But The Hunter is still an important part of Mastodon's history, as the band would go on to take their newfound vocal prowess and knack for catchiness, and experiment with them further to create the stronger OMRTS and Emperor of Sand albums. So to that end, I'm excited to see how the band evolves and subverts expectations as we go into their 2020's era!
- Burnt Alex
Well then, the thing I mentioned happened hahaha. Given his lack of power here, I can easily mess with him via footnotes but a) I am too lazy for that and b) this is a much more interesting result. You know how the saying goes: "One man's meat is another man's poison." Sexual funnyman references aside, I feel many have this problem with The Hunter but seeing as I am a glorious pretentious twat, I don't hahaha.
In any case I am glad I decided to cover this very special record in this way and even though I disagree with ole' Alex here, what fun would it be if we agreed on everything? This is not the way of The Hunter after all and I wouldn't have it any other way. Pursuit happiness with diligence my friends and stay safe! Until next time which is... tomorrow actually. Wonder what that will be about!
The Hunter was released via Reprise Records on September 27th of 2011.
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