Mastodon - Medium Rarities (2020) [Official Digital Download]

When Mastodon invite you to go deep, you best bring an extra supply of oxygen. Given the place the Atlanta behemoth came from, a primeval, subterranean metal underworld, the prospect of plummeting even further within is almost enough to bring on a dose of the bends.

Since their emergence at the start of the century, Mastodon have shown that brain-twisting heaviness doesn’t have to be dull-edged, and that it can even be a thing of spinning delight. This oddball compilation brings together rarities, covers and live tracks from throughout their career. And rather than adhering to anything so obvious as chronology it becomes a seemingly random, yet highly effective, stampede – but that’s Mastodon to the core.

Most fans will have heard Fallen Torches, the album’s sole new recording and a heroic attempt to salvage 2020 via monolithic riffs and an outro thunderous enough to crack planets. It features guest vocals from Neurosis’ Scott Kelly plus a rocket of a chorus sung by multi-talented drummer Brann Dailor, still the only member of Mastodon you could introduce to your mum. Then the hirsute quartet chuck us into A Commotion, one half of an unlikely split single they shared with Canadian indie singer Feist in 2012 (she covered Black Tongue, equally inconceivably). Mastodon inject the relatively spindly original with a sinister punk metal edge that’s off kilter and immediate at the same time.

TRACKLIST

1. Mastodon - Fallen Torches
2. Mastodon - A Commotion
3. Mastodon - Asleep in the Deep (Instrumental)
4. Mastodon - Capillarian Crest (Live)
5. Mastodon - A Spoonful Weighs a Ton
6. Mastodon - Toe to Toes (Instrumental)
7. Mastodon - Circle of Cysquatch (Live)
8. Mastodon - Atlanta (feat. Gibby Haynes)
9. Mastodon - Jaguar God (Instrumental)
10. Mastodon - Cut You Up with a Linoleum Knife (from the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters Colon the Soundtrack")
11. Mastodon - Blood & Thunder (Live)
12. Mastodon - White Walker
13. Mastodon - Halloween (Instrumental)
14. Mastodon - Crystal Skull (Live)
15. Mastodon - Orion
16. Mastodon - Iron Tusk (Live)



Thanks to the Original customer.