Oh boy, Crack the Skye in its entirety live should be great, but after watching a few videos on YouTube, I have an impression that Mastodon's live vocal performances of songs from Crack the Skye are a far cry from the studio recording. But vocals play such a crucial role for that album, so... don't know really.

I am in complete agreement with you. Moving away from growl-vocals is a move that would require the boys to have the hability to sing. Something I can't quite risk saying that they have.

Written by Czerny Reiter on 05.02.2011 at 17:53

I am in complete agreement with you. Moving away from growl-vocals is a move that would require the boys to have the hability to sing. Something I can't quite risk saying that they have.

Well, I think the studio performance on Crack the Skye is actually amazing, but one just has to deliver live as well. That's what a good quality band should be. Like if you take Vektor, their vocalist does some unbelievable high-pitch singing, which I was amazed to discover he basically emulates live. That's great.

I really wish Mastodon could do that, but I think that is something they could work on actually.

Written by K✞ulu on 05.02.2011 at 18:08
Well, I think the studio performance on Crack the Skye is actually amazing, but one just has to deliver live as well. That's what a good quality band should be. Like if you take Vektor, their vocalist does some unbelievable high-pitch singing, which I was amazed to discover he basically emulates live. That's great.

I really wish Mastodon could do that, but I think that is something they could work on actually.

Of course, the studio performance is what sets the bar in the first place. The three or so subsequent live performances that I saw on video were all sub-par vocal-wise, leading to my current skepticism. The DVD is bound to be all touched-up, much like a studio release but I wonder if even then it will prove sufficient. All in all, I just really wanted to finally go to a gig featuring them and to walk away thinking it was money well spent.

I'm not familiar with Vektor and am not much of a concert-goer anyway, but the band that impressed me the most live so far was Porcupine Tree (which reminds me, I should get one of their live DVDs sometime soon).

Not bad I guess, but, as expected, the vocals leave much to be desired although less than I originally thought they would.

Buy it here.

Interesting some of the disappointment about Mastodon live. It was their performance at Heavy TO last year (or was it Heavy MTL the year before?) that lead me to look into their studio stuff. I will be catching them again (with Opeth) when they're back in Montreal in April.