Top tier, or shit?

Top tier, or shit?

pretty meh

i'll get back to you in half an hour.

it was ok. nothing special imo

Final two tracks saved it imo.
Don't get lost

desu, i'm not that far into it, but it sounds like the mastodon boys stopped listening to gojira for a minute and got really baked to tmv/led zeppelin

Yeah, they went from that harder and more gritty style to a smoother more melodic vibe. While I like their older stuff a little more, Crack the Skye was god tier and they have some newer songs with real feels, Chimes at Midnight, Toe to Toes, etc.

I think it was emporer of sands b sides slapped into a ep, so i didnt expect much. I like it, not there best stuff but its good for somthing different.

honestly, i still haven't listened to emperor of sands yet. i've got a huge backlog, lol. so i'm listening this one out of order.

not impressed with the lead guitar, tho, he can play better. i dunno, it feel like he wasn't invested in it.

and then the second solo comes up and i eat my words. brent is solid, man.

fucking kek, yeah instrumentally I think the band still has it. Coupled with the vocals still being strong I still fuck with them pretty hard.

top tier shit

Eh, these sound too different honesty, vibes are pretty different

It's definitely separate. iirc it was originally a side project of Brent's and they decided to release it under Mastodon.

The problem with Mastodon is that they've started to stick with this songwriting shtick they've developed during Crack The Skye era, which was a good album btw.

>moany Troy vocals during the verses against a driving riff
>catchy, soaring alt metal chorus with some spacey shit
>some minor doodling inbetween to account for the "prog" part

And that's it. I feel like when they wrote music with shitty vocals they focused way more on writing murdering riffs and crazy songs that could go anywhere. See Dillinger for example, they have catchy alt-metal songs but most of their shit is as intense as their early work and they did not sacrifice variety in the slightest. The focus on vocals and writing "hooks" is what ruined this band since the rest of what made them cool just became duplicated and repeated to infinity. Their formula became old because the actually focused on writing songs instead of soundscapes. Just listen to Hearts Alive once more and try to compare it to anything on Emperor. It's apalling.

I don't totally disagree with you. That being said, I still enjoy them quite a bit, really simply because I like their post Blood Mountain vocal style. I don't think their post Crack the Skye output is better than their old stuff, instrumentally I don't think their music is as interesting (tracks like Chimes at Midnight are too few and far between), but I do still enjoy it.

I thought it was really refreshing.

It's better than most of their newer stuff

eh, I enjoyed once more around the sun more

their soft shit is the best other shit just seems like hippy bipolar rhythm music

Tripped out on shrooms with Cold Dark Place in the background ..........took me to a Cold Dark Place

about on par in terms of quality with omrts but better than the hunter and eos