Blood Mountain (album)

Blood Mountain
Studio album by
Mastodon
ReleasedSeptember 12, 2006
RecordedDecember 2005 – April 2006
StudioRobert Lang Studios, Studio Litho, and EK Studios, Seattle, Washington
Genre
Length51:02
Label
ProducerMatt Bayles
Mastodon
Mastodon chronology
Call of the Mastodon
(2006) 		Blood Mountain
(2006) 		Crack the Skye
(2009)
Singles from Blood Mountain
  1. "Crystal Skull"/"Capillarian Crest"
    Released: August 8, 2006
  2. "The Wolf Is Loose"
    Released: November 2006
  3. "Colony of Birchmen"
    Released: March 12, 2007
  4. "Sleeping Giant"
    Released: 2007 [1]

Blood Mountain is the third full-length studio album and major label debut by American heavy metal band Mastodon. The recording of the album finished in April 2006 and it was released on September 12 in the UK and September 12, 2006 in North America through Reprise Records. The album in full could be streamed at the band's MySpace page a few days prior to the release.

Like Mastodon's previous studio work Leviathan, Blood Mountain is a concept album. According to bassist Troy Sanders, "It's about climbing up a mountain and the different things that can happen to you when you're stranded on a mountain, in the woods, and you're lost. You're starving, hallucinating, running into strange creatures. You're being hunted. It's about that whole struggle."[2] Guitarist Bill Kelliher considers this album to represent the earth element.[3] At the time, bassist Troy Sanders called it "sonically the best album we have done." The band's emphasis on clean, melodic vocals instead of the harsher vocals that the band used on their early work continues to grow on this album.

The album includes guest appearances by Scott Kelly of Neurosis on "Crystal Skull", Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age on "Colony of Birchmen", as well as keyboard player Isaiah "Ikey" Owens of The Mars Volta and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala of At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta on "Pendulous Skin" and "Siberian Divide", respectively.

  1. ^ "Sleeping Giant" (single). Mastodon. Reprise Records. 2007. PRO-CDR-102042.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  2. ^ Lampert, Eva (April 26, 2006). "Beware of the Cysquatch On New Mastodon Album". Chart. Archived from the original on October 5, 2010. Retrieved August 7, 2009.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  3. ^ "MASTODON (TROY SANDERS/BILL KELIHER) INTERVIEW". Terrorverlag GbR Musik Magazin. October 11, 2006. Archived from the original on July 23, 2011. Retrieved May 28, 2007.