Crack the Skye
| Crack the Skye | ||||
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| Studio album by Mastodon | ||||
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Publication |
2009 |
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admission |
2008 |
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| Label (s) | Reprise Records | |||
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Title (number) |
7th |
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running time |
50 min 03 s |
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Studio (s) |
Southern Tracks Recordings |
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Crack the Skye is the fourth studio album by the American progressive metal / sludge band Mastodon . It was released on March 20, 2009 via Reprise Records . Crack the Skye is a concept album about out-of-body experiences , time travel , Stephen Hawking's theories about wormholes and the story of Rasputin , who comes into contact with the protagonist, a young boy with a neurodegenerative disease .
Emergence
The band started working on their new album in the summer of 2007. In contrast to the previous albums, the band members left a recording device running during the jam sessions and recorded their various riffs , which became the later songs.
On September 9, 2007, the MTV Video Music Awards were presented in Las Vegas , where Mastodon played the song " Colony of Birchmen " with Josh Homme , singer of the band Queens of the Stone Age . That night, while drunk , Brent Hinds took on bassist Shavo Odadjian from the band System of a Down . A brawl broke out in which Hinds suffered severe head injuries, a broken nose , two blue eyes and cerebral haemorrhage . Hinds then had to be treated in hospital for a long time.
In an interview with the German rock magazine Visions , Hinds stated that this incident had a significant impact on the new album. Hinds attributed the fact that the new album sounds less "hard" and "wild" than its predecessors to his head injury. Even so, he drew something positive from the incident.
“I'm more creative as a guitarist, I feel more inspired when I write. After my discharge from the hospital, I whistled to King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King every morning , which is really inspiring. "
In May 2008 the band wanted to start recording in the studio. Originally the band wanted to engage Rich Costey, who mixed the previous album Blood Mountain , as a producer . Costey was unable to attend due to scheduling reasons. Since the band didn't want to wait, they sent demo recordings to producers like Joe Barressi and Nick Raskulinecz . Ultimately, the choice fell on Brendan O'Brien , who had to finish the AC / DC album Black Ice immediately before the recordings .
The recordings took place in the Southern Tracks recording studios in Atlanta . The guest musician is the Neurosis singer Scott Kelly , who sang his parts in the Go Psycho Hum studio in Medford . Crack the Skye was mixed by Brendan O'Brien and mastered by Bob Ludwig at the Gateway mastering studio in Portland . A music video was shot for the song "Divinations". It was directed by Robert Schober.
background
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As with its three predecessors, the main theme of Crack the Skye comes from the four-element theory . The debut album Remission dealt with fire , Leviathan with water and Blood Mountain with earth . Instead of the fourth, still missing element of air , the theme of Crack the Skye refers to the aither , which the Greek philosopher Aristotle described as the quintessence of the four elements.
The protagonist of the story is a paraplegic child who goes on an out-of-body journey and travels into the past. His umbilical cord is scorched by the sun . The child is sucked into a wormhole and travels in the Russia of the 19th century and comes to the Khlysty , a sect whose members have tried to self-mortification Jesus Christ found in it. The Chlysten regard the child as a prophecy . The cult members recognize the child's problem and place his soul in Rasputin's body. After Rasputin is murdered , the souls of the child and Rasputin leave the corpse's body through a crack in the sky. Rasputin's soul tries to bring the child's soul back to his body as quickly as possible.
The theme song pays homage to Brann Dailor's sister Skye, who committed suicide at the age of 14 . The album cover of Remission , which shows a burning horse , alluded to this incident. The remission cover was inspired by a dream Dailor had about his sister and ended with the nuclear annihilation of the earth. The chorus of "Quintessence" refers to Brent Hind's accident described above. With the words “Let it go!” He wants to forget the incident.
reception
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Crack the Skye received excellent reviews from the music press. The German rock magazine Visions named Crack the Skye "Album of the Month". Dennis Plauk described the album in his review as a “rare, precious spectacle”, which “ redefined progressive metal ” and is certain that Crack the Skye, alongside De-Loused in the Comatorium by the band The Mars Volta, will be “the two greatest marvels of the decade will go down in the history of hard, progressive rock music ”. Plauck gave the album eleven out of a possible twelve points.
In the German metal magazines Metal Hammer and Rock Hard , Crack the Skye took second place in the soundcheck. According to Petra Schurer from Metal Hammer, the album "takes the listener on a turbulent journey through time and musically mixes the most exciting elements from the past four decades of hard guitar music". They rated the album with six out of seven points. Michael Rensen from Rock Hard praised the "significantly improved singing and the fascinating stylistic variety" in his review. In his opinion, Mastodon brought " King Crimson , Neurosis , Voivod , Devin Townsend and hard classic rock more coherently than never before without having exhausted their potential" and awarded 8.5 out of ten points.
In the German progressive rock webzine Baby Blue Pages Andreas Hofmann was, Crack the Skye is the published in the same year Traced in Air by Cynic style not dissimilar and he would "[...] there is definitely always prefer Cynics last piece of work, because unlike Traced In Air this is not a tepid infusion, but a clear further development. ”However, since individual songs are too indecisive, Hofmann gave the album a rating of 9 out of 15 possible points. Nick Greer from the US online magazine Sputnikmusic, on the other hand, rated the album negatively with two out of five points. He criticized the absurd lyrical concept and the half-hearted musical implementation of the non-metal influences.
Crack the Skye entered the US album charts at number 11 and sold around 41,000 copies in the first week. The work reached number 36 in the German album charts. For the first time, the band made it into the Austrian (42nd place) and Swiss charts (58th place). The highest chart positions reached Crack the Skye in Finland and Norway , where the album reached number 6 each.
The British magazine Rock Sound voted Crack the Skye album of the year 2009. At the Revolver Golden Gods Awards 2010, Crack the Skye was nominated in the category Best Album . The German magazine Visions had the album in their list of the 66 + 6 best metal albums of the third millennium in spring 2017.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Michael Rensen: A kick in the ass for AC / DC . In: Rock Hard , April 2009, p. 34
- ^ Aaron Thompson: Post-VMA headbanging. Las Vegas Weekly , accessed November 22, 2013 .
- ↑ MASTODON: 'Divinations' Video Available. Blabbermouth.net , accessed April 3, 2018 .
- ↑ Jonathan Cohen: Update: Mastodon To Play Complete 'Skye' On North American Tour. Billboard , accessed November 22, 2013 .
- ↑ a b Jens Mayer: We are four . In: Visions , April 2009, pp. 30–35
- ↑ Chart sources: DE / AT / CH / US Mastodon in the Official UK Charts (English)
- ↑ Dennis Plauk: Mastodon - Crack The Skye. Visions, accessed November 22, 2013 .
- ↑ Petra Schurer: Mastodon CRACK THE SKYE Review. Metal Hammer . Retrieved November 22, 2013 .
- ↑ Michael Rensen: Mastodon - Crack The Skye. Rock Hard, accessed October 21, 2018 .
- ^ Andreas Hofmann: Mastodon - Crack the Skye. Baby Blue Pages , accessed November 22, 2013 .
- ↑ Nick Greer: Mastodon - Crack the Skye Review. Sputnikmusic, accessed on November 22, 2013 .
- ↑ MASTODON's 'Crack The Skye' Lands At No. 11 On BILLBOARD Chart. Blabbermouth.net, accessed April 5, 2018 .
- ↑ Mastodon in the Finnish charts. Finnishcharts, accessed November 22, 2013 .
- ↑ Mastodon in the Norwegian charts. Norwegiancharts, accessed November 22, 2013 .
- ↑ Top 75 Albums Of 2009: Part Three. Rock Sound , accessed February 2, 2016 .
- ↑ Erik Pedersen: Revolver Golden Gods noms announced. Hollywood Reporter, accessed September 21, 2018 .
- ↑ oA: The 66 + 6 best metal albums of the millennium . In: Visions, issue 289, pages 52–66
Web links
- Crack the Skye on Allmusic (English)