Mastodon: Brent Hinds (vocals, guitar, banjo); Troy Sanders (vocals, bass synthesizer, bass guitar); Br„nn Dailor (vocals, drums, percussion); Bill Kelliher (guitars).

Additional personnel: Richard Morris (Mellotron, synthesizer).

Audio Mixer: Brendan O'Brien.

Audio Remasterer: Bob Ludwig.

Atlanta's Mastodon climbed to the top of the metal heap the old-fashioned way. Taking the template for success etched by Metallica, the band captured the imagination with a series of albums that offered potent heaviness and relentless experimentation. After graduating from respected indie Relapse, they released 2006's acclaimed BLOOD MOUNTAIN, an album with a fire motif/fantasy adventure concept that opened numerous doors both commercially and critically. Their latest, CRACK THE SKYE, completes their elemental cycle by focusing on "ether," while also serving as a tale of czarist Russia. The progressive metal elements that bled into their sound on BLOOD MOUNTAIN are pushed even further here, led once more by Brann Dailor's furiously technical drumming. As Dailor goes, so goes the band, and his stick work remains some of the finest this side of Neil Peart. The crackling "Divinations" follows up the contemplative, restrained "Oblivion" with furious thrash riffs and springy dueling fretwork, and "Quintessence" wraps glittering guitar arpeggios around Dailor's impossibly percolating drums. The four-part "The Czar" is a towering epic that comes off like Rush on steroids, each part with its own distinct feel. A more mature and adventurous metal album is unlikely to be heard for a long time.

First off, a warning: the best way to encounter Mastodon's Crack the Skye for the first time is with headphones. Reported to be a mystical -- if crunchy -- concept record about Tsarist Russia, this is actually the most involved set of tracks, both in terms of music and production, the band has ever recorded. "Ambitious" is a word that regularly greets Mastodon -- after all, they did an entire album based on Moby Dick -- but until now, that adjective may have been an understatement. There is so much going on in these seven tracks that it's difficult to get it all in a listen or two (one of the reasons that close encounters of the headphone kind are recommended). It may seem strange that the band worked with Bruce Springsteen producer Brendan O'Brien this time out, but it turns out to be a boon for both parties: for the band because O'Brien is obsessive about sounds, textures, and finding spaces in just the right places; for O'Brien because in his work with the Boss he's all but forgotten what the sounds of big roaring electric guitars and overdriven thudding drums can sound like. The guitar arrangements on tracks like "Divinations" and "The Czar," while wildly different from one another, are the most intricate, melodically complex things the band has ever recorded. There are also more subtle moments such as the menacing, brooding, and ultimately downer cuts such as "The Last Baron," where tempos are slowed and keyboards enter the fray and stretch the time, adding a much more multidimensional sense of atmosphere and texture. Still, Crack the Skye rocks, and hard! Its shifting tempos and key structures are far more meaty and forceful than most prog metal, and menace and cosmological speculation exist in equal measure, providing for a spot-on sense of balance. Some of the hardcore death metal conservatives may have trouble with this set, but the album wasn't recorded for them -- or anybody else. Crack the Skye is the sound of a band stretching itself to its limits and exploring the depth of its collective musical identity as a series of possibilities rather than as signatures. And yes, that is a good thing. ~ Thom Jurek

Rolling Stone (p.81) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "CRACK THE SKYE is an awesome display....It's thrill-ride stuff that conjures not just art-metal predecessors such as Helmet but also old-school prog-rockers like Rush, Frank Zappa and Yes."

Spin (p.74) - "CRACK THE SKYE is a seven-song, 50-minute phantasmagoria of psychedelic song structures, cosmic lyrics, and foreboding atmosphere. Opener 'Oblivion' provides a fiery summary of what's to come..."

Alternative Press (p.116) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Guitarist Bill Kelliher's mathy riffing is simply seismic; standouts 'Oblivion' and 'Quintessence' juxtapose burning-horizon solos and must-mosh-now thunderclaps."

Kerrang (Magazine) (p.50) - "The record rumbles to life with the ominous 'Oblivion,' the sound of thunder moving over mountains, and the menacing tone this strikes is prevalent throughout and best demonstrated on the title-track, which is one of the meanest and most overpowering songs you're likely to hear this year..."

Q (Magazine) (p.107) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]heir most mainstream to date....A sprawling prog-metal masterpiece....Richly rewarding..."

Blender (Magazine) (p.61) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "New to the mix are rich vocal harmonies, Vocoder, organ and unprecedented awesomeness....Mastodon present a prog-metal concept that would make Stephen Hawking bang his head."

Pitchfork (Website) - "'The Czar,' a four-part, 11-minute epic that's still only the second-longest song on the album, gargles and fumes and lurches for nearly three minutes before launching into its first glorious steamroller riffs."