First Taste of Skye

As mentioned below, Divinations, the first song from Mastodon's forthcoming album Crack The Skye, was supposed to debut on BBC tonight. Apparently it leaked a little early.

You can check it out here.

My first impression, despite being a borderline fanatical Mastodon fan, is that it's a little underwhelming. Like I said before, I've had some concerns about this album for a minute since I'm not a big fan of Brendan O'Brien as a producer and the band's description of the album as a step away from the crushingly heavy stuff was troubling to me. Unfortunately, listening to Divinations doesn't eliminate those worries about the album. Yes, it still sounds distinctly like Mastodon, which is great, but I'm not sure about the cleanish vocals (which is funny, because I love the clean vocals on Naked Burn), it's a little more wanky than ballsy , and even my favorite part, the surfy guitar that comes in at 2:14, is more interesting than awesome. Lyrics involving Vikings are definitely a plus though.

All that said, I've loved everything these guys have done so far and have been to more than a dozen of their shows, so I will reserve judgment on Crack The Skye until I get to hear the album in its entirety. With luck, that will be soon.