Blood Mountain (album)

Untitled

Blood Mountain is the upcoming third full length studio album by metal band Mastodon. The recording of the album finished in April 2006 and it is scheduled for release on September 12th 2006.

Like Mastodon's previous studio work Leviathan, Blood Mountain is also a concept album. According to drummer Brann Dailor, "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 will include guest appearances by Scott Kelly of Neurosis, Joshua Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, as well as keyboardist Isaiah "Ikey" Owens and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala of The Mars Volta.

The first single "Crystal Skull" can be heard on the band's official website [2] and along with the album track, "Capillarian Crest" on their MySpace page [3]. It's status as the second single, or a single at all, has yet to be confirmed. Guitarist Bill Kelliher considers this album to represent the earth element. [4]

The album leaked in full on August 6, 2006 at P2P networks.

Track listing

• "The Wolf Is Loose"
• "Crystal Skull" (Feat. Scott Kelly)
• "The Sleeping Giant"
• "Capillarian Crest"
• "Circle of the Cysquatch"
• "Bladecatcher"
• "The Colony of Birchmen" (Feat. Joshua Homme)
• "Hunters of the Sky"
• "Hand of Stone"
• "This Mortal Soil"
• "The Siberian Divide" (Feat. Cedric Bixler-Zavala)
• "Pendulous Skin"

Story Notes:

• The main character is in seach of the Crystal Skull which he hopes to place at the top of Blood Mountain.
• In an interview with drummer Bränn Dailor it was revealed that a Cysquatch is "a one-eyed Sasquatch that can see into the future."
• In an interview with drummer Bränn Dailor it was revealed that in "The 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."

Personnel

• Matt Bayles - Producer
• Cedric Bixler-Zavala (The Mars Volta) - Vocals (guest)
• Brann Dailor - Drummer, Group Member
• Brent Hinds - Guitar, Vocals, Group Member
• Bill Kelliher - Guitar, Vocals, Group Member
• Scott Kelly (Neurosis) - Vocals (guest)
• Isaiah Ikey Owens (The Mars Volta) - Keyboards (guest)
• Troy Sanders - Vocals, Bass, Group Member
• Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) - Vocals (guest)