Greece's Rockpages webzine Rockpages.gr caught up with Troy Sanders (bass) from MASTODON to talk about he band's latest album, Crack The Skye. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Rockpages.gr: Crack The Skye, your last album I think it’s the most accessible, if I can use that word, from Mastodon so far. What’s your opinion?

Sanders: "It’s definitely the most accessible. We just kind of concentrated more on melodies, and spacious layered guitar parts, ultimately building the songs, and we really spend a lot of energy on the art of song craft. We really tried to write wholesome songs that had interesting starts, solid bodies, and solid finishes. Something that was memorable, and moved, had a nice flow up and down, and just felt good. It allowed us a lot of life to be breathed into the songs. We took a different approach with the songs, this time around, and just tried to make something that will last quite a long time. Hopefully, the music on Crack The Skye will stand the test of time a bit further than anything else we ever done."

Rockpages.gr: Would you say that this approach on the new album was something like the “evolution” of the band, or did you just come up with this kind of the material?

Sanders: "Well, the material started to come out… it wasn’t really a predetermined idea to write songs like this. It was a solid representation of the feeling of what the band had being going through, and experienced over the previous two years, and this type of music started to spill out. When we started to listen what we were creating, we realize that we could really hone in on some of these ideas, elaborate on this deeper, darker, more beautiful sound, and try to build, and grow on this new sound that we were creating…

Rockpages.gr: With all due respect, some people might say that with this move, changing your sound that much, and making your most accessible album, you are selling out. What’s your comment on that?

Troy: "Well, we’re not really selling anything! (he laughs) You know, it was a very natural step in the band’s evolution. As artists, it’s beautiful that we are free to explore new sounds, new musical territories. We can tread new, fresh musical water. For these songs we really dug deeper from the heart and soul. These songs are either as authentic, or even more authentic than anything we’ve ever written. It’s closer to our heart than any other album we’ve created. This is an honest Mastodon record, and for those people that would like to strap in, and join us on this journey, that’s amazing. If people don’t care for it, or think we’ve changed for any negative type of reasons, then that’s fine. We didn’t write this album to please those people. People can think what they want, we can’t please everybody, but this is the album that we always wanted to make. We hold it more sincere to our hearts than anything else we’ve ever done."

Check out the entire interview here.