The Brave Picks Top 30 Of 2009 countdown continues! Each day in December we will deliver one of the essential records of the year - as voted by the scribes here at BraveWords.com. We have finally reached the Top 20!!

Double-bass drum roll please ....

#15 - MASTODON - Crack The Skye (Warner)

Crack the Skye was released on March 24, 2009 as a normal version and a deluxe version (which includes all songs in instrumental versions as well as their normal versions) and entered the Billboard 200 at number 11 a week later.

BraveWords.com scribe Greg Pratt wrote in his feature:

There’s a moment at 4:07 into ‘The Czar’, a ten-plus-minute song off of Atlanta metal monsters MASTODON’s new disc, Crack The Skye (shockingly, not the only ten-plus-minute song on the album), where it becomes apparent the band has arrived. Because for 21 seconds, they put aside all the progressive tendencies and the maniacal metal they’re known for and lay down a fat fucking groove that sounds like a Bark At The Moon outtake. It’s simple, it’s in 4/4 time and it’s probably my favourite 21 seconds of music released this year. It’s confident, and it’s just to say, “We can.” Because then they bust into the crazy shit again.

And yes, the rest of the album rules. It consists of only seven songs but they’re jam-packed with the myriad twists and turns people have come to expect from the juggernauts. The set of songs reference perennial tour mates SLAYER, perennial influencers THIN LIZZY and perennial dorks GENESIS and YES in equal doses. It’s different from their past output in a few ways, and mainly it sounds like a solid, cohesive whole that a lot of work went into.

“Yeah, we were prepared,” says guitarist Bill Kelliher. “We had a year off, went our separate ways, got away from each other for a minute, pooled some ideas together, and started working really hard. I went out and got some ProTools for my laptop, started dumping riffs into it. We got some nice microphones for our little practice space, we started recording rehearsals, switching stuff around, so by the time we got into the studio with Brendan, we had everything under our belt, pretty well.”

Read the entire interview here.

BraveWords.com - Brave Picks Top 30 Of 2009

#30 - DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT - Addicted (InsideOut)

#29 - GOD DETHRONED - Passiondale (Metal Blade)

#28 - KISS - Sonic Boom (Kiss Records/ Walmart)

#27 - GORGOROTH - Quantos Possunt Ad Satanitatem Trahunt (Regain)

#26 - CHEAP TRICK - The Latest (Cheap Trick)

#25 - EX DEO - Romulus (Nuclear Blast)

#24 - SWALLOW THE SUN – New Moon (Spinefarm)

#23 - KATATONIA - Night Is The New Day (Peaceville)

#22 - KREATOR - Hordes of Chaos (Steamhammer)

#21 - ASPHYX - Death... The Brutal Way (Century Media)

#20 - GOATWHORE - Carving Out The Eyes Of God (Metal Blade)

#19 - VADER – Necropolis (Nuclear Blast)

#18 - CHICKENFOOT – Chickenfoot (Redline)

#17 - BRUTAL TRUTH - Evolution Through Revolution (Relapse)

#16 - CANNIBAL CORPSE – Evisceration Plague (Metal Blade)

#15 - MASTODON - Crack The Skye (Warner)