Flush It Friday: Slickleg
Praise mammoth.
Brent Hinds died late Wednesday night at the intersection of Boulevard and Memorial here in Atlanta. Rather than biographize an at best mercurial and irascible figure whose final months were laced with an overly public breakup with his bandmates of 20+ years, let’s just take a moment to listen to 5 songs from 5 albums. 2001’s Lifesblood was the blueprint. Dailor and Kelliher had just cut their teeth on Today is the Day’s In the Eyes of God, and Dailor’s kitwork steals the show. “Shadows that Move” was and still is audacious and unforgettable. So few records are this exciting.
What is and will always be the high point of Mastodon’s discography, Remission is arguably the defining metal record of the first decade of the 21st century. I remember I bought it and Lifesblood, along with a few Youth of Today CDs from someone online that year. All the manic, almost uncontainable energy of Lifesblood is here channeled into a sound so tightly conceived and bombastically articulated. There’s nothing interesting or unique about picking “Mother Puncher” here except to reiterate that it might have at least two of the greatest and heaviest riffs ever conceived. On repeat, forever and anon.
Yes, yes. I get it. I hear you. This is the landmark. When I was 18, I got “Built to slay and conquer” tattooed on my left calf over an image of a whale and squid locked in eternal battle. “I Am Ahab” isn’t even my favourite song from Leviathan! That honour goes to “Seabeast,” a song that hearkens back to “We Built this Come Death” while looking forward to the band’s many future directions. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that “Hearts Alive” is, in some objective, measurable way, the best Mastodon song from the original era.
I’m skipping Blood Mountain. 2008’s Crack the Skye is the album the band wanted to write in ’06 but wasn’t quite ready. It’s Yes transformed into a 19th-century Russian epic about the impossibility of loss and addiction. The songs are long, indulgent, recursive, and obsessed. It believes that if it returns again to that riff, refrain, bridge, melody, or line, something will unlock, and the pain and suffering will slough off. It’s hypnotic, incantatory, addled, dazed, and a triumph. Take your pick, but for my money closer “The Last Baron” just edges “The Czar,” to say nothing of opener “Oblivion.”
In December 2011, Mastodon played a homecoming show at the Tabernacle that Steven and I attended thanks to free tickets from a friend who worked there. All I remember is them closing with “The Creature Lives.” A hooded choir had joined the band to lead us while a million balloons dropped from the ceiling all over the crowd. This isn’t the only time I’ve professed my love for one of Mastodon’s sillier songs (and albums), but whatever the band was trying to do on The Hunter finds its apex in this anthemic celebration of life rising up from the mire.
THE SWAMP IS RIGHT WHERE I SHOULD BE. RIP BRENT. LET’S FLUSH.
Stick gets things movin’ with The Monday Press. Roldy keeps things groovin’ with This Toilet Tuesday.
We’ve always got room for Brock. Big, doomy stuff from Witherer, Gloombound, and Thorn.
KnifeDad aka Silent K is back with a lovely review of the new Heruvim.
Toilet Radio 576 with Joe n Jordan has us wondering: which nu metal discography would be worth the most at auction?
Falxifer bestows 3.5 frosty, frigid, icy-to-the-tuchus toilet seats for the new Panopticon.
I had the pleasure of premiering the lead single from Gawthrop‘s debut LP.
Reliquary Tower, ToH’s very own Big Dumper, is back with another addition of Tag Diving. This time, he’s found some new footwear!
Fall semester starts next week. It’s gonna be a wild ride. Share your GBUs below. Hugs and kisses.
