Mastodon – The Hunter

Only thing to describe this album is Frantic - particularly the drumming. The band starts at 1000 mph and doesn't let up. Really a tour-de-force of musicianship particularly for the drumming. The mix, at least on the CD - sounds compressed and unfortunately muddy at times. That combined with some of the effects make some of it hard to listen to. But if a loud mix is your thing you won't be disappointed for sure, but still very rewarding on a system that can give you some low end.

Love Mastodon. Not the biggest fan of their vinyl releases. This pressing is silent though. The issue is that it is quiet and compressed. There are little dynamics. Interestingly, I turned my treble dial almost off on my preamp and it sounded decent this way.

And so, I continued my (short) trip following Mastodon’s discography between 2004’s “Leviathan” and 2014’s “Once More ‘Round The Sun”.

I wasn’t really sure of what to expect after an album like “Crack The Skye”.
It had been such a great surprise after me not being able to really connect with the band’s music for so long, that I was dreading it was a one-off.

Enter 2011’s “The Hunter” and all my hopes were that the band would follow the previous album’s direction, with that prog edge that I enjoyed so much.

It wasn’t the case.

I will not say that “The Hunter” is a “simple” album (I don’t think any Mastodon album can ever qualify as such), but there’s clearly a songwriting complexity and sophistication drop between “Crack The Sky” and this one.

It may have something to do with another change in the production role, as Mike Elizondo took Brendan O’Brien’s position for this one.

Whatever the reason was, “The Hunter” feels like Mastodon’s most straightforward effort to date, with plenty of short songs (“Blasteroid” is just over the 2 and a half minute mark!) and, even though we all know that longer or more complex doesn’t mean better, it is true that the album fails to engage me as “Crack The Skye” did.

Still, there is plenty here to be enjoyed if you’re in the mood for some dirty sonic attack (“Black Tongue”, “Curl Of The Burl”, “All The Heavy Lifting”, “Dry Bone Valley”, “Spectrelight”…) punctuated with Mastodon’s trademark spacey and psychedelic twists, with more atmospheric or “laid down” sounding pieces such as the title song or the closer “The Sparrow”, and solid combinations of all the above as in “Stargasm”.

This is a solid pressing. The fidelity isn’t mind blowing by any means, but it’s still quite good. The mix sounds punchy and clean. My copy is flat with minimal surface noise. Couple clicks here and there. I would recommend this to anyone with an affection for the album. It’s easily Mastodon’s most underrated record.

Just picked up a copy of this today and am quite surprised at how good the sound is considering it's a picture disc. Quite happy with it! And as others have noted, it is censored.

I love the drum production on this record, it kicks off with a bang on Black Tongue and there are some real gems in here. Love this pressing, no complaints!

5/5 awesome pressing. Sounds great. Maybe could have been a little more spatial in the mixing side of things; its mix is pretty upfront and you don't get that stereoscopic sound like from some albums, but damn that's a nitpick because this thing sounds great. No compression at all. I can hear every instrument so distinctly. And the jacket is rad too. Heavy heavy gatefold. Love this thing. Now to get the rest of the Mastodon 45s...

Extremely quiet and very compressed. Sounds like a low grade mp3 rip

In the past year, I have bought 2 copies of this album, and both have had severe outer edge warping, and the 2nd copy even had a deep scratch causing loud pops, and this is brand new. It's going back to the shop for a refund, and I won't be giving it a 3rd chance.

I agree with the other comments. The record is quiet, but it's not as compressed as the previous LP releases to my ears. Not an amazing release, but better than a lot of the other older mastodon stuff.