Description
A European promo 3-track promo with promo cover.
“The Wolf is Loose” pretty much sums up the entire Blood Mountain album in a nutshell, with it’s blisteringly high octane pace, ascending bridges, and vocals split pretty evenly between the manic shouts of the past and the Mudvayne voice of the future. This is a three and a half minute foray to insanity and back. It is followed by “Crystal Skull” which is another raging examples of what Mastodon is best at: heavy, catchy riffing, bonkers drumming, and impassioned vocal delivery. The melodic singing is integrated well in the tracks, just as it was on “Naked Burn” from their previous record. This has a very interesting tribal-sounding drum intro, and some guest vocals from Scott Kelly to top it off. The promo ends with “Capillarian Crest”, which show case a more progressive, aggressive style, rife with tapping leads and frantic melodies. Again, it shows that they are pretty good at most of the styles they toy around with, even though they are mainly just reaching to other areas for inspiration in their own defined sound, as opposed to trying desperately to appeal to everybody. This track was to be the the album’s first single and it defines Blood Mountain in terms of pure musicianship and emotion. Beginning with an off-centered, hesitant riff lead by Hinds, the song soon ventures abruptly into a swinging, pulsating rhythm in three that plunges into syncopated 5/8 meter before the listener is even able to catch up. Vocalist Troy Sanders rescues the group from such rhythmic disorder by bringing them all back together and hanging onto that five chord as long as he can before Dailor snatches it right back, coercing his minions to do his bidding by ending the song to the swift pounding of his double kick. So if you like these tracks then its difficult to see why you wouldn’t enjoy Blood Mountain and you will probably be blown away by some of it too.
Track list:
1. The Wolf Is Loose-album version
2. Capillarian Crest-single version
3. Crystal Skull-album version