Blood Mountain

Blood Mountain is the third full-length studio album by metal band Mastodon. The recording of the album finished in April, 2006 and it was released on September 11 in the UK and September 12, 2006 in North America. 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." The album includes guest appearances by Scott Kelly of Neurosis on "Crystal Skull", Joshua Homme of Queens of the Stone Age on "Colony of Birchmen", as well as keyboardist Isaiah "Ikey" Owens and singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala of The Mars Volta on "Pendulous Skin" and "Siberian Divide", respectively. Music videos for "The Wolf Is Loose", "Colony of Birchmen", "Sleeping Giant" and "Capillarian Crest" have been made. Although the video for "Capillarian Crest" is made up of live footage, the studio version of the song is played. Guitarist Bill Kelliher considers this album to represent the earth element. Vocalist/bassist Troy Sanders calls this "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 in full could be streamed at the band’s MySpace page a few days prior to the release.