Hard to argue that if there’s a best metal band on the planet, MASTODON logically would be many a studious headbanger’s pick. A relentless polishing of the band’s obsessive, meticulous sound has been taking place over the course of five records, with The Hunter packing in all the insanity you love, the note-dense prog, the crazy dark atmosphere, the grinding Master Of Puppets-proud riffs, just not the deathbark vocals – that’s now gone the way of the term Relapsecore.

Also gone is the concept album heaviness, with Mastodon, as Bill Kelliher explains, somewhat wanting to rock out, crank it out, get in with the concise headbanged fare and get out.

“Yeah, well, number one, you’re right, this record, there’s not really a big long concept behind it, begins Bill, one of the band’s two hard-charging axe carvers. “When we did Crack The Skye, we had a whole concept behind it, a whole story. Each song came to have a certain feel and they seemed to go together. The new record is all over the place. There’s a lot more freedom involved. With Crack The Skye, we sat there and practiced and learned every little detail, every part, and rehearsed it for months and months and tried each song and every riff in different arrangements and in pre-production we really like worked that album to death (laughs). But with The Hunter, we finally built a recording studio for demos in our practice space, and we would come up with the riff, record it and move onto the next riff and the next thing. It was very spontaneous, the way the entire process came together. Instead of sitting there and rewriting every part and playing around with this and that, putting it under a microscope, we kind of just let everybody write what they want to and just saw what worked with what, which riffs seemed to fit together, and we just kind of recorded it there on the spot.”

“I mean, Crack The Skye has a lot of 15 minute, ten minute songs, but it had a lot of negative space, open spaces,” continues Kelliher, on what was a universally acclaimed album, yet one that went over a lot of people’s heads at the same time. “And with The Hunter, it’s kind of like every section is filled with something; there’s not a lot of negative space. It’s kind of like a ‘less is more’ thing. Crack The Skye has a lot of songs that are kind of the same tempo and same speed. The Hunter, each song has more of a formula… not a formula, but it’s kind of stripped-down. It’s not real intricate stuff. It’s more like upbeat. When I think of Crack The Skye, I wouldn’t say it’s depressing, but it’s more of a moody album. We played it in its entirety live because that’s the way it felt like it should be played. The audience… it was kind of like they were watching a movie. And literally, they were, because there was a movie screen (laughs). But it was a shoe-gazing kind of feel. People were just into the music and listening and chilling out, and we wanted to have a departure from that.”
“Because when we started playing our old stuff after playing Crack The Skye live, the crowd went ape-shit,” laughs Bill. “It was crazy. That’s what really kicked us into high gear, helped us feed off the crowd. So we wanted to make a record that was kind of back-to-basics. We’ve been going out with these concepts, and we did have a concept for The Hunter that we kind of squashed at the last minute. It just didn’t feel right to add all that extra baggage to this record. It just felt like this record had to be standing on its own. It didn’t need a long drawn-out story or any special bells and whistles. It was like, let’s just make it, that’s the album, that’s it, that’s the way we used to write records, let’s just put it out the way it is. So there are a lot of differences, but a lot of similarities too. It’s another album where we’ve grown as musicians – especially the vocals; they’ve really taken off. More concentration on Brann getting in there and singing and doing harmonies. I don’t know, I think everybody is kind of taking care of their voices a little bit better and stepping up to the plate as far as singing goes.”

“We’re kind of cutting the fat off of it,” adds Bill, as summary. “We trimmed it up a lot. With Crack The Skye, we had a lot of showing off, stuff going on. During ‘The Last Baron’, there’s a little intricate part. It’s not there for any reason other than it was a spastic moment in the song, and we didn’t really… I’m not saying we didn’t have time to put all that stuff in, but the record came together so quickly and spontaneously. I mean, some of the riffs were written in the studio after the drums were already put down. It’s like okay, we’ve got to make up a riff for this verse that goes here, and it had to be done on the spot, in the studio. I don’t know, it’s just really different then any other record prior to this.”

The end result is definitely an album that is both super-smart about the history and future of metal yet at the same time pretty damn immediate and crammed with hooks. The Hunter is sure to keep going the band’s flow of accolades from fans and big-ass bands alike. So which quips of praise have hit the band hardest?

“Gee, I’m trying to think,” says bill. “I’m on the spot with that one. I think when James Hetfield said something about passing the torch. I don’t even think we were on tour with them. I think we were just playing a show with them and they said, ‘We want to send this song out to Mastodon, who are holding the torch for metal,’ or something along those lines. And, ‘We’d like to pass them the torch,’ or something like that. I thought shit, that’s amazing. I never thought it in a million years, when I was 15 years old, that I thought that would be happening. And Jerry Cantrell said something one time before we had all actually met him at a festival in Ireland. It was in-between their set, and they said, ‘How about that Mastodon? Man, holy shit!’ (laughs). And just hearing like Dave Grohl… he’s a friend of ours, but he’s always been a big fan. And Geezer Butler said something on That Metal Show and Bill Ward, many times talked about us on his show. You know, they just keep coming, Mike Inez from ALICE IN CHAINS just sent me a text, and it’s like, ‘Man, way to go on the new record, dude – fuckin’ great.’ You know, it’s nice to hear people like that say nice thing about your band, I guess.”

So will the band continue trying to make the greatest heavy metal album ever?

“Sure, sure, you’ve got outdo the last record (laughs). You can’t be putting the same records out. You’ve got to change it up a little bit. I think Mastodon is still on the way up. We’ve got a lot of stuff to offer. We don’t want to just put out a mediocre album, ever. That’s kind of like you gave up. We could never let ourselves do that. I’m glad, and when we’re writing, we don’t really think, ‘Oh, what are the fans going to think about this?’ It’s more like, ‘What are the other guys going to think about this riff I wrote?’ or this song, but then when it’s a week before your record comes out, like now, of course I’m dying to see what people are saying about our art (laughs).”