Our first story deals with a subculture of heavy metal music that some feel is sending a dangerous message to your kids.

The forces of evil on the dark side of devil, right.

And I want to talk tonight about the devil and demons and witches and Wizards and we just.

Mix it up with hardcore and aggression.

And come out with something, we face an original sound.

Loud, Fast.

Heavy.

You know well, what do you got?

What do you got?

You're listening to Riff Worship, the podcast that attempts to answer the age-old question, what makes the riff?

Why do we care about riffs?

Talking about albums featuring some of our favorite riffs, Talking to people who make great riffs.

I'm one of your hosts, Austin Paulson.

With me, as always, is the great Bald Hope, the great Baldini, my best best friend.

Dylan Adams, how are you?

Good, smooth, smooth doing, good man.

Ready to ready to dig into this record we're going to talk about today.

Yes, I'm very excited.

We've been talking about this for a minute and we've been talking to this guest about doing this record for a little while now.

I'm so excited to introduce our very special guest.

She's a multi instrumentalist, vocalist, riffer, lyricist.

She's in every band.

There are no bands left.

You can't do them.

Sorry.

She's in all of them.

Glacier, check out a Distant Violin Shutter from last year.

You can also check out a More Distant, More Violent from this year that was released back in July.

She's in C Mammal.

She recently joined a band with our friend in Cowardice, Julian Still Life Sounds.

As well as some of her solo work.

She is a world class designer and illustrator, designing album art and posters and just wonderful pieces of work.

She's also an educator and a Mastodon superfan, which we will get to in a little while.

But please welcome to the show.

Liz Walshak, how are you?

Great.

Wow.

Thank you for such a wonderful introduction and thank you for having me.

Of course, great to have you, and there's so much I want to talk to you about, obviously, but we ask a lot of guests on the show.

First and foremost, what makes a riff?

What does it need?

I know this is a really simple, straightforward question, but as a listener or a musician, like what do you look for in a riff?

What does it need?

Well, I think the simplest answer is like any type of riff that makes you make the smells bad face where you're like, yeah, or I think a riff can be a lot of different things actually.

Like, it doesn't need to be like a guitar with a ton of notes flying around.

Usually there's some kind of rhythmic component.

But for me, it's just any kind of instrumentation that really like pulls at my heartstrings, that really like resonates.

And there are different kinds of riffs, different flavors of riffs.

If you were right, it like your some of your riffs and like see like what, what kind of flavor do you think that would be?

So in C, you know, we tend to take a lot of nods from like thou where like with thou their riffs just it's like this involuntary, like your head just bangs, you know.

So it's like this heaviness and really just slow and low.

So I write a lot of slow and low stuff and then, you know, in other bands like Mammal we're doing like Iggy and the Stooges style rock'n'roll riffs.

So, you know, I, I think it, it kind of span all of the different flavors.

Where does where does that start for you?

Like what?

You know what?

Where does the riff begin for Liz Walshy?

Oh my God, that's a very existential question, honestly.

I mean, a lot of it comes from maybe like just tinkering, like having the guitar there, noodling around, you know, seeing what feels good and then playing around with different rhythmic stuff.

Sometimes you hear something and you're like, oh, I want to write a riff like that.

I would say right now my favorite, like, typical definition of riffs would be like anything by young Widows, especially their song Old Skin.

Like I think you had Evan Patterson on and he said it was that Led Zeppelin rhythmic thing where it's like Denaro, Denaro, like anything that has that.

Like, obviously you just can't help but thrash.

Yeah.

For me, I just kind of, a lot of my music just starts with tinkering to be honest, and just kind of playing around, see what feels right and then, you know, taking it from there.

You know, just doing research on your background and some of the, I mean, honestly, excellent notes that you've provided for us today to it seems like there might have been a time where we may might not have even be here today.

You know, there was like kind of you picked up guitar at kind of an early age and then maybe set it aside for a while.

But like, you know what, what sorts of things were you learning?

And you know what?

What brought back, what brought you back to it, essentially.

So yeah, I was interested in playing guitar, and I started when I was 14 and I briefly took lessons.

But, you know, it was the era of like, pop punk and I didn't like pop punk and all the people in my town played pop punk and emo and I just did not have enough serotonin in my brain for that.

I was like a goth kid.

I liked punk, but not pop punk.

I liked like 77 Punk and 9 Inch Nails in Metallica.

And so the only kids I knew who played were in like 2 towns over and it was like a 35 minute drive, which before I drove was a lot to try to coordinate a ride with like siblings or parents or whatever.

And it was like a long distance landline phone call because it was pre cell phones, you know.

So I took guitar lessons briefly and my guitar teacher would spend like a crazy amount of time fixing a juice cocktail at the beginning of the lesson and then tune the acoustic guitar by ear for like 10 minutes.

And I was like, I don't think this is a good use of money.

So I sort of shelved it for a while and then Fast forward maybe like five years, in 2006, I got together with my now partner Mike Blasey, who is the other guitar player in C We started C together.

I had my old acoustic guitar and I used to just play the same old songs like Over the Hill and Far Away by Led Zeppelin and like Dramamine by a Modest Mouse.

Those were my 2 like go to noodle riffs and and then you know, I learned Metallica and Nudge nails and all this stuff.

But I expressed interest.

I was like, you know, I always wanted to play in a band and always wanted to play like electric guitar.

So that year he gifted me for Christmas one of those like electric guitar starter kits that has like a Strat style guitar, the little practice amp and the gig bag.

And it's like 99 bucks, you know, And it was called the Metalian.

It's the metal Alien.

Oh.

My God, that's awesome.

So I just like picked that up and started practicing a bunch and, and I got really into it.

And this was before I heard Mastodon, I think.

Yeah, like right before I heard Mastodon.

And then I heard Mastodon, which got me into the sludge metal and got me into really, like, riffing and building dexterity and practicing a lot and actually like, improving my guitar technique.

And the rest is history.

I mean, what a band to pick because I mean, it's not, you know, I mean, the album we're talking about today, Blood Mountain for most sex.

I mean, like it's there's not easy stuff on this.

Like none of their stuff.

I ever seems like, you know, you really must have had to like sit there and die.

I mean, I would now like I I I'm like trying to follow what they're doing.

And some of the parts on these songs, it's almost like, wait, this is the same song.

How the fuck did we end up here?

Like, what was it like?

What were the some of the first Mastodon licks or riffs that you were learning?

Oh, man, definitely Blood and Thunder.

I feel like that's a good entry.

Level 1.

Yeah.

And you know what I remember learning it on?

Was it Guitar Hero?

Yeah, Guitar Hero because they licensed the song there.

And not like there's any correlation when you're actually playing guitar, but, but that kind of like demystified it a tiny bit where I was like, Oh yeah, this is just like power chords.

Like, I know, I know how to play whole, you know?

But yeah, it was funny because so around that time, like 2007, I was really into punk and art rock and had eclectic music taste, but I wasn't really into metal.

I sort of like shelved my interest in metal for whatever reason to like explore other subcultures and sub genres.

And then they Mastodon toured with against me and Cursive and it was such a weird bill.

I remember at the time being like, you know, what a strange lineup.

But in doing research for this podcast, I learned that it was Mastodon's first record with Universal Reprise.

Reprise.

That's it.

And it was also against Me's first major label debut.

So I imagine some, like, record exec was like, OK, we'll package these bands together.

And maybe Cursive was more popular at the time.

So the three bands played together at this venue called the Avalon in Boston.

Now it's the House of Blues and I went for Against Me 'cause I was a big fan, still love Laura Jane Grace and I remember I'd been moshing to Against Me and then Mastodon started playing and in my mind they opened up with the drum fill from The Wolf Is Loose.

And I was like floored.

I was like, holy shit, what is this?

And from that point on, I was just like obsessed.

But I checked the set list and that was like mid set.

So, you know, they played other stuff.

But I think that was the moment for me where I was like, holy shit, I've never heard music like this before.

And it just, you know, you feel electrified.

You're like, this is incredible.

And obviously like they're all very, very proficient and talented musicians.

So it's just inspirational.

You know, you're like, I want to play like that.

So with that, with that show, like did you immediately just were you like I got to get the record or like where was your did you start elsewhere in their discography or was Blood Mountain like the first one that you actually like had?

That was the first one that I had and I had played like listen to Leviathan before, maybe like once or twice.

It didn't quite stick for me like Blood Mountain did.

And I think it was because Blood Mountain just kind of has this like psychedelia, like these nods to psychedelic rock, which always appealed to me.

Like I'm a big psych rock fan.

And at the time too, I was listening to it on my iPod, got to set the stage with all the old tech and whatever.

I was listening to it and just like running and the season was changing.

It was like autumn or something.

And I remember it just really fit the music and yeah, man, so.

So that's what got me into it.

And then in terms of learning some of those guitar riffs, I mean, it was a long time ago, so I don't remember where I started, but.

But I think at the time I was just really interested in like obsessive repetition, you know, building dexterity, trying like alternate picking and string skipping and arpeggiating and all of these nerdy guitar tricks that would end up informing my playing a lot.

But I was, I had no aspirations of playing music with other people.

I was just a bedroom guitar player at this point.

I mean, but you are, I mean, you have approached quite literally like everything.

I mean, even just the bands that I named.

It's cool.

Like I, I had no idea that you were, you know, working with our our friends and and cowardice in a kind of like another project.

But you know how, yeah, how do you like, you know, with approaching different styles And, you know, I I definitely will definitely touch on this on the album, obviously with, you know, Mastodon kind of bringing in different influences, whether like regionally or they obviously are huge music nerds.

Like how do you like other forms of music inspire like what you do on like maybe the heavier side or vice versa?

Like how do you take those aspects of songwriting?

How do they influence each other, you think?

I think there's so much overlap, like it's all related, but I do with my projects, I tend to compartmentalize things where I'm like, OK, this is the shoe gaze band, so I'm going to approach things in a different way.

So hopefully all my bands don't sound exactly the same and maybe I'll use different pedals and I actually try to come up with different voicings.

And I know for players, you just sound like yourself.

So no matter what kind of genre or style you're playing, it's going to sound like you.

But But yeah, for songwriting, I think the approaches are really different too.

Like with C, for example, when we first started writing songs, we were just really into like Pelican and Isis and Neurosis, Hydrahead records.

Like no repeating riffs, let's just do riff, riff, riff.

Maybe this will be 9 minutes of instrumental with a little bit of vocals.

So we weren't really thinking about crafting songs with this conventional pop structure.

And as we started writing together more, and because Steven is such an amazing vocalist too, we really wanted to be more intentional with like writing specific parts that could repeat to make a good song that might be memorable or that people can kind of like latch onto.

So it isn't just like, oh, we have these 12 riffs and let's just string them together.

And then with writing shoe gaze, for example, I tend to just drown everything in effects.

So with the metal stuff, like it needs to be a lot more guitar driven and more straightforward.

You're not really relying as much on effects to like create a wash and fill space.

And oftentimes with metal, one thing that I like is when bands use space really intentionally and thoughtfully.

Like 1 band that comes to mind is Big Brave.

If you know them, have you ever seen them live?

Swindle would have definitely been the guy to ask about this, but I have not.

But we listened to like the records and it is just like is I would describe it, or at least what I've heard as like almost as minimal as it gets.

But like there is just like this kind of like aura or like, yeah, like the the lack of or the use of the space in the atmosphere is just like, I haven't heard anyone approach it like they do, I think.

Totally.

And in the live context, they're like playing the space and playing the reverb and playing the room.

And that's really fascinating to me because, yeah, I've just, even though Mastodon was the starting point, as I write more and more, I tend to want to like strip things down to the the essence of whatever emotion I'm trying to convey.

And if it's like trying to make something bleak, it's like I don't want to fill that space with a lot of notes.

It's like, what are the two most sad sounding notes?

Or just like strum those out for a while or, or just pick those two notes.

So I think, yeah, I mean, it all informs each other.

Like some of the voicings I learned from learning Mastodon songs are things that I would use like in a shoe gaze song too.

And, and I don't, I'm not really educated in music.

I'm completely self-taught.

I didn't do band in school or anything.

So I know a little bit of theory to get by, but I couldn't tell you like what really I'm doing.

It's just all by ear and feel and tinkering and hope and something sounds good.

I mean, on the complete opposite spectrum of like a big brave, there are so many fucking notes on this record.

Like, like I get, I don't I don't know what they're doing, but I I do feel like there is an evolution in like what they're attempting and they're there are pulling from other places that they might not have explored.

On Leviathan.

We were kind of talking about it off air.

And you know, like Dylan had mentioned, like this is maybe a record that maybe gets slept on a little bit just because of where it's placed in their discography.

I don't know if you want to touch on that, Dylan, but.

Yeah, I mean, when you've got an album that is as that's stuck in between two of the band's classic records, right, You've got Leviathan that's lauded as this classic.

It's it hits at Melville, you know, the the whole Moby Dick tie in.

But then you have cracked the Sky, which is kind of considered the pans arguable peak.

I mean, it is it's an entire piece set aside from what could be with that band.

And you've got this album that's the band's major label debut and it's just kind of gets glossed over and everybody forgets how tight and how like precise they were on this record without being overly practiced.

Like it doesn't sound like something that's just on a grid and just presented out.

It sounds like 4 guys got in the room, wrote this record, but we're so heavily toured and had Tor shape from all of it that it just felt seamless.

And it just feels like, and I'm a huge fan of Leviathan and this band as well.

And I think, I think this album.

Is a much tighter, more thought out version of Leviathan, and it just feels like the band was firing on, firing as hard as they could, playing as hard as they could as fast as they could at certain points, and it felt like they just weren't missing a beat.

They felt like they were trying to prove themselves all over again.

I mean, between the song structures on here, how catchy the tracks are, adventuring into new vocal territory, multiple time signature changes.

Like in some songs they're they're happening so quick you can't even tell.

And I don't know how these guys were keeping up with it either, other than just look at the freak behind the drums.

Like somehow you got to root it with that guy, right?

But this is just, I think this is the album that slept on.

Everybody remembers remission to the debut, everybody remembers Leviathan, Crack the Sky.

And then I would think even in the modern era, you have a couple records that are really looked highly upon as well.

And this one just feels like it gets left out a lot and I'm glad we're getting to give it its just due.

I don't we've we've done on episode on Leviathan.

So I don't want to like go like too far back.

But obviously the bands like break break out record.

I mean it was like on the Billboard charts, like 139 as you mentioned, they they toured a fuck ton on it.

Like, you know, they were touring with bands like Iron Maiden and Slipknot Slayer.

Wish they would continue to do through this record.

They were on the second stage of Oz Fest.

And you know, Leviathan was definitely like what got them signed to a major label as well.

It seemed like there was a daughter of a Warner exec who was just playing it incessantly at the house and was like, all right, I can't take this anymore.

Like who is this band?

And we're going to sign them and make them as big as possible.

And, you know, I, it's interesting to see like, you know, to go from kind of the underground and, and being on so many of these like kind of weird tours, it seemed like they kind of had a knack for like playing with bands that, you know, might be as crazy as Cursive.

And, you know, we've kind of talked about it a little bit too.

But yeah, I mean, they just fucking toured like crazy for like 2 years and started to piece this record together.

And Liz, I, you know, I again, I, I knew this album had a concept, but I didn't exactly understand like the full grasp of it until you fucking went in on the notes and like applied to like all of these kind of like illustrations with the hero's journey.

I mean, like, I feel like there's so many ways you could interpret it, but like what?

When you look at it, when you hear it, what you like, get out of it.

When you like, read the lyrics sheet or when you're listening to it.

I mean, I think it's pretty straightforward to what they've explained it being about, man.

Like, to me it always felt like it was about some personal journey, right?

And like any metal band or metal record, it's cloaked in metaphor with like Wizards and goblins and monsters, you know, So, so I always caught that reference, but I didn't actually, you know, think of it as this whole hero's journey until I was looking at genius lyrics and the comments section there.

There were some people who really dove deep and I was like, wow, this makes a lot of sense.

And and then, you know, watching their documentary like the making of Blood Mountain, they were talking about like, you know, the it's about personal things, overcoming personal things.

But then it wouldn't be a Mastodon record without talking about like monsters or, you know, these larger than life forces.

And and then, you know, the whole concept was really cemented when I saw that they actually have a real life Sisquatch or Sisquatch, however you pronounce it, that comes out on stage with, you know, the Cyclops creature during the circle of Sisquatch.

So I was like, oh, OK, this is legitimately just like a hero's journey through battling all these different monsters up a mountain to to find the crystal skull and put it at the top of the mountain.

Amazing Adele, have you?

I've never seen them personally and I don't know if have you either of you seen them where the Sasquatch comes out and kind of tears up like very Iron Maiden.

There's a lot of Iron Maiden on the stretch, but like that specifically screams, you know, I don't.

Have you guys ever seen that live?

I feel like I must have because I've seen them a few times but it was so long ago I don't remember her.

So what I grasp is that's a newer thing for them to bring out the size Squatch and everything.

Like within the last four or five years they started playing bigger rooms.

They had a little bit more of a budget and that started to happen because every time I've seen them has been like, here's 4 dudes, we're not saying a whole lot, we're just going to kick your ass for an hour and a half.

And like I like that aspect, but I love like if you're tying in movie monsters and all sorts of stuff with it, like bring it on.

So hopefully if I see them again in the future I get to see the size squatch.

Yeah, be cool.

But yeah, it it's so it's always so funny when it you like you dive into this band and just like interviews and stuff and it's like, you know, you might have like Bran who's like talking about it and he's got like this well thought out thing.

Then like, you know, maybe Brent's like, I don't know, we were taking this and taking that and like there's a there's a a ghoul and like some Greek monsters that we threw in there.

It's like maybe it's somewhere in between, but you know, it's yeah.

I think like kind of like you're saying if you're, if you're looking to get into a lot of like kind of like deep Eddy stuff, I think it's there.

But then also if you want to just like there's a giant and we fought the giant, that's also there too.

So whatever you're looking for, I think you can get out of it for sure.

Equal parts, equal parts the Odyssey and equal parts like, you know, The Muppets take Manhattan.

You know, this is another record.

They obviously went with the same producer that they had done on the previous records, Matt Bayliss.

I think they spent like about like 8 weeks tracking the record in Seattle at a various different studios, Studio Litho, Red Room Studios, Jupiter Studios.

You know, it seemed like it would be obvious, like, hey, we're comfortable with this guy.

Like, you know what, we're doing it, You know, if we kind of go back to remission, that record at least seemed like it was kind of kind of put together kind of haphazardly.

Like even Matt wasn't even in the studio that he was comfortable with.

He had to like fly out to down South.

Leviathan was like kind of the first record where I'd understand the space.

I know how to use all the equipment.

And then for this record, you kind of go back and you know, like I said, comfort thing at first makes sense.

The last record did so well, but it also seemed like based on research, maybe like following the record because they ultimately went with someone, someone else after that.

Matt is very particular and like expects, you know, like his performances to sound a certain way and he might have him do like a million takes of a certain thing.

So I, you know, I don't know if you've ever had that kind of experience.

Like I feel like now we're kind of maybe especially on the underground level, like we just kind of work with people we know are friends.

But like, you know what, what, What have your experience has been like in the recording studio is I'm sure it's like a different beast than, you know, playing live or.

Yeah, I think I haven't had anything nearly as intense as Matt Bayless.

Like even watching that documentary, you see Brent ripping that like multi time signature midsection of like capillary and Crest or something.

And then Matt's like, oh, do it again.

And Brent's like, like he's breaking down, you know, yeah, I my favorite thing in the studio is once the engineer slash producer is just like, I think you could do better.

And you're like OK, cool gentle push, but nothing to cutthroat.

Yeah, I know Matt.

Matt kind of describes to like, you know, this is like everybody's, I would say most everybody's like first experience dealing with like a major label.

And so he's getting calls while he's, you know, he's expected to like capture the the songs and and make like a good product.

But like you also have Warner kind of knocking on the door like, Hey, why don't you have like these fully produced demos ready, like what's going on?

So he's like also feeling all the stress behind that and you're trying to get, you know, these like, I mean, to put it lightly, lunatics to play properly or get the best performance out of these musicians.

So I mean it, it sounds amazing.

I think it's like, I mean, everything about it.

I, I, there's, I can hear like every like dictation of the notes and the drums sound incredible.

I mean, as far as like production, you know when you listen to it, like what comes to mind when you guys listen to it?

I mean, it is flawless.

And also considering this came out in 2006, it doesn't sound dated to me.

Like listening to it, I hadn't listened to it in years.

And then, you know, I was revisiting it for the podcast and I got as excited about it as I did when I first heard it because I was Now I'm listening with, you know, 15 years of musician's ears.

I'm like, Oh my God, that drum fill.

Oh, my God.

Like the LFO that's going through the whole song, Like, how did how did they do that?

You know, And it's just so densely layered.

I mean, this, this to me is a masterpiece.

Like I I feel like every time I listen to a song on this record, I can pick out new details that I hadn't heard before.

This I agree.

I think this is a flawless sounding production and comparing it to the albums around this, everything has its own nuanced sound.

I think this sounds better than the album after it hands down.

There's a clarity to this album that none of their the rest of their work during this era has.

There's so much brightness without it sounding like it's over polished.

All the notes are are there.

You can hear it individually even in all the double picked guitar parts that are in there where things will just get blurry.

The lush sounding vocal arrangements on this record without it sounding over the top and just the the back and forth between everybody because it's still Brit and Troy handling all of it on this at this point in time.

But what I really enjoy is that there's a shit load of layers on this record, but there's not a ton of like there's not a huge amount of ambient textures going on yet.

There's enough that makes it really interesting to where you do hear it for the 15th time and you go, wait a minute, I didn't notice that mug kicking in or that Mugurufu or pedal or whatever is kicking in.

You know, what's Troy doing with a base wah and these sudden like swells at certain points?

Like there's so much going on with this production that's so cool and the different stabs that will come in with like guitar harm and he's coming out of nowhere.

I also being a bass player, this is the first time you really get to hear Troy on the the records prior.

Like Leviathan, he's pretty buried remission had to get a remaster many years later for you to hear him.

But he is as destructive sounding as I've ever heard him on this record.

And it's just a feral sounding production that holds up 20 years on.

Like it's a contemporary release now.

I like I like what you brought up about like some of the effects that were used on this record because like it seemed like they were definitely experimenting with some of the more psychedelic or even just weird shit.

Like there's the story of Braun, like watching the Peter Jackson King Kong.

He's like, I got to play a 50 gallon drum on this record.

Like get out of here, like you know, the some of the Moggerfinger or however it's pronounced.

But Liz, has there ever been like a, it could be musical or non musical piece of like equipment that you have used or, you know, maybe something that has like kind of inspired a song and just like taking it from there.

Like what sorts of things have you used on like a record?

Oh, so C used this bizarre homemade instrument that our drummer, Keith, he has his own studio called Labyrinth Audio in Peabody, Mass.

And it just looks like a bunch of old metal, scrap metal, like pieced together to make this weird instrument.

I don't even remember.

There's like a string and it spins.

Who knows?

So we use that thing and hooked it up through a bunch of petals.

And then we've used theremins too.

There is.

I can't remember if on Impermanence we used a theremin.

I feel like we did and definitely we have.

We recorded a second record that we're working on finishing up and we definitely use Theremin on that.

We have this whole interlude and yeah, so.

Did you, did you yourself like attempt to have, were you playing it or was somebody else playing it or like?

Mike was playing it.

Yeah.

Had he any knowledge before or was he just kind of like thrown in the fire and like figure it out?

Just winging it, yeah.

Hell yeah.

Yeah, the thing with the theremin is like you're playing the field of the magnetic field, so you're moving your hand to match, to find the pitch and then control the volume.

And if you put it through a bunch of pedals too, it can create really atmospheric sounds.

So we did lots to that.

I love that and I I think it works like super well on this record.

Like all of the just like weird, like it is a very like there isn't a lot of fat on this record, but the moments they do kind of get to play around with the space and like jam a little bit are like so fun and like really earns like there's just like, you know, obviously we we've talked about like different influences and and you know, come to find that these guys just love shit like that.

Like I I know Genesis served as like a pretty big influence, at least on like one particular song.

I mean these guys just like a lot of music.

So it makes sense that this is here for sure.

One of the my favorite effects they used is the vocoder effect on circle of size squats during that like gnarly breakdown.

Again, the first time I heard that, I had never heard that kind of effect in a metal song like that.

And then on Pendulous Skin, you know, Brent has that beautiful like Rotary effect on his vocals.

And to me, that just makes the song, it sounds like he's like underwater singing, you know?

There's like, I mean there are like very obvious moments and then there's like sometimes there's like a little like noisy thing to kind of like take you to the next track or something.

I mean, but also I mean fucking like blade catcher it like what are what are we doing?

R2D?

Somebody just threw like a fucking like, I don't even know what, like down a flight of stairs.

That that track alone, just being on a major label release by essentially A surging metal band who wants to take over the world, dropping that dead center of this record to end the A side out is pretty bonkers.

It's like, ah, fuck it, freak out moment.

Like pure psychedelia.

You know we're going to we're going to throw Brent on whatever vocal effect you're doing, speed it up, slow it down, making whistle and crackling noises.

Also while playing this fucking jam that just has all of these stop start moments.

Like what a nutso record to be a major label release.

It's the it's the swindle line where he always says there there's at least one moment where like musicians prove that they are just doing shit to piss people off.

Like this is that is that moment for sure.

Like it's, it's so great.

Another thing about the production that I do really like is, you know, some of the some of the people that have popped up.

I had no idea that Ben Verellen, that was just like, it makes sense being like a Seattle guy.

He'd work with Matt on like other bands that he was, but he's just in the room.

You also have Chris Common from These Arms or Snakes.

I think he was like a drum tech on the album.

But then you also have some people who come back again, like Scott Kelly, obviously of Neurosis had made appearance on the previous record.

And Josh Homme, like I think I want to say Queens of the Stone Age was working on a record.

They were already friends by this point.

He they sent him like, here's a song, you're going to work on it.

But then he also recorded some extra stuff.

I don't know.

If Oh my.

God, because what's interesting is like you listen to the the digital aspects of this record, like the digital version of this record and like the punch of skin is like they they like shaved it down.

Like it's not it doesn't have like that extra like bit part at the end, right?

Which was also kind, if I understand right, He he kind of did randomly.

Yep, Yep, you're correct.

So the CD version of it has it on there.

It's got the silence and then all of a sudden it's him reading this letter basically.

And it's it, it's like a 35 second read and it's done.

That's the record.

And it's him chuckling at the end.

But the vinyl edition that I have, it's not on there.

The digital version, it's not on there.

So if you have it on on CD, you've got it in there.

But I'm I'm glad you mentioned like Josh, you know, up until the album's release, like they were releasing videos for the wreck or for the record.

So you had like the wolf is loose.

You had capillary and Crest being released as a single.

You had colony of Birchman, which you finally hear homie on there and you're like, is that him?

Is it not?

Who could it be?

You know I I don't want to miss out on the other guest that's on here.

You have Cedric from the Mars Volta not really fucking doing anything, just making the craziest like caterwauling noises in Siberian Divide, like just purely like making these moaning and kind of groaning sounds all pitched up and affected.

And you know it's funny because these guys get really lumped into Prague metal territory around this period, right?

You know Tool was thrown around.

They released a record that you were 10,000 days.

You know the Mars Volta that released I believe it was in Bedlam and Goliath this year or Amputexture, one of those two, which are if you've never had a chance to listen to that band or haven't given that band a chance start in that era.

It's wild.

And then Queens had just released a Lullabies to Paralyze, which had like little Sister on it, Burn the Witch, all of those tracks.

And it's funny that all of these guys are somehow tied around and got to know each other and like, hey, come be on a record.

And then of course, Scott is like a must.

He's on every record I think aside from the most recent.

Yeah, Isaiah too, I should mention, plays synthetic and like organ, appendulous skin.

So yeah, you and I guess that came up.

They were like, imagine asking someone to be on your record when you're like hammered on tour, like, hey, you're going to be on my record.

And then like, hey, we're recording.

You said you'd do it.

You can't, you can't bang out now you got to do it, man.

I, I don't really.

I tried to look up the gear around this record.

I know that there were some like, I think they, they officially got a Yamaha endorsement like after this record, but they were using some of this stuff.

Liz, I'd be curious.

I know I feel like you use like a Les Paul.

I don't know what it what is your like go to like must haves like are you using the same guitar that you're using on stage in the studio?

Like what are what are you like the must haves around like your pedal board and in your in your hands?

Yeah, I think for the studio, it really depends on what works well frequency wise, because sometimes like you'll be using your live guitar and usually it's it's the same because you're like, I want to capture this live sound in the studio.

But then I know, I don't know if they did it on this record, but I know Mastodon sometimes will layer different types of guitars.

Like they'll have a Les Paul and then they'll layer it with a Fender because it's like different tone nations.

Or at a certain point they were bi amping like Brent had a J CM800 and then a Fender Twin to put the clean tone to keep the jangly bits like audible in the live setting.

So for me, I mean, like for Glacier, I have this Les Paul clone.

It's an Electra Super Rock from the 1970s.

It's one of those Japanese Matsumoku guitars.

And I put the Billy Gibbons Pearly Gates pickups in there.

So it sounds really good.

And usually, yeah, I like to use the same gear in the studio as live just to to kind of capture my sound.

And then in terms of like overdubs and layering, it's all about like, what other frequencies can we, you know, build the sound with or sculpt the sound with?

Yeah, 'cause I mean, they're, I mean, there's like acoustic layerings on here.

There's plenty of clean moments like.

And again, maybe it is a testament to just like the production of it where it's like, man, it's such a dense fucking record, but like everything comes through in such a clear way.

But yeah, I mean they to have the thought and you're touring as well.

So like what at what point do you even have the time to like kind of map this all out?

But it's just it's everything like all those frequencies that you're mentioning, although like the layer, I mean, there's just it has everything.

There's such like all of these different textures that are happening on like this one record.

So one thing to kind of bring up and, and, and kind of connection with gear is that talking about inspiration and where it comes from for each artist, the band is known to use three different tunings.

It's all kind of tuned down a full step adjacent, right?

It's a standard detuning.

It's a drop C and a drop A, which is where they're taking that low E string down to an A, right?

So you have an octave between the A string and the G string essentially, if you're basing it off of the full step tuning.

So they would do that.

So you get different feels for different tracks like Sleeping Giants and C Circle of Side Squatches and A Wolf is Loose is a standard song.

You've got different feels for all those in different ways of playing.

The one thing I wanted to bring up about gear on this is this is the first time I ever noticed that someone was by amping a bass rig.

Troy would have to, he would blend 2 separate amps, one for an affected signal, typically fuzz, OverDrive, whatever in a clean signal because it keeps the fundamental while you've got the effect on top.

So it's a huge sound.

And he's utilized that same set up since this record.

And you do if you, I'm sure if you isolated the bass track on here, it's actually 2 separate tracks, just this very fundamental clean and this affected signal.

And I believe around this time frame, Troy started using boogie heads a lot, blended with like an Ampeg classic of some sort.

He's he's the one guy I know that's still like tube amp driven when it comes to bass amps, especially touring at that level with all of that.

And like I am so happy to say that I finally haunted down the same style of pedal that he used on this record to get this sound.

It was a it was a blue beard Sanford and Sonny bass fuzz that he used on this record.

It was made from a guy based out of Atlanta and he made them by hand for a few years.

Well, I found a company recently that makes them makes a clone of that their version of it and the company's called Leifa or Leifa pedals and he made me one recently and I'm so happy to have that.

And I finally got a chance to plug it in recently and it as soon as I plugged in went Yep, at I'm done.

Like the fuzz search is over.

Like there's a lot of great ones, but it's it's doing the thing I needed to do and it's a gnarly sound.

And it's it all started with this record.

But knowing that the bass frequency on this record is much louder, that owes a lot to the mixing of this record as well.

I believe Troy even congratulated the mixer on this record, whose name is slipping me correctly.

Is it rich?

Costly.

Costly.

I think you're right, but knowing that you finally get this very present prevalent bass sound on this record, along with already being a dominating force that he is with his voice and he's got this great kind of Dave Edwardson meets Buzz Osborne kind of bellow that just wrenches out of these records.

That's so fucking cool.

But you know, back on the gear, like knowing that these guys are gear guys and if you've watched any videos or done any research on this band, they're kind of constantly swapping stuff out to try new things like especially during this time frame.

Hey, you know, we've got a Yamaha endorsement.

We've all got these, we've all got these fucking 9 strings that they're coming out with the, the solo cuts or we're dealing with first act or, or you know, Troy's working with Fender, Warwick, whatever.

There's all sorts of stuff going on.

These guys are just kind of gear nerds when it comes down to what can we do to make the record sound like what we've got going on in our head.

And I think this I could only imagine what the insides of all of their heads were looking like at this point in their career.

One other important aspect of this record I want to touch on before we maybe get into some of the tracks is just the fucking artwork.

I like always incredible whenever you like, play the record.

I mean, I it's hard not to just sit there and look at it.

And Liz, like when I have like seen some of your work, whether you're doing something for, you know, a band or maybe even a festival, I feel like there is like this through line through like Paul Romano in your work where it's like this there it maybe has like a very like natural quality to it.

Like it.

There's just always seems to be some sort of like nature presence involved.

There's like a fantastical quality to it.

How has Paul if if it all influenced your artwork, you know, like, what are your favorite pieces of his work?

Like?

What do you There are certain things like what do you think about when you look at Paul Romano artwork?

My God.

Well, he's one of my favorite album artists, obviously.

And I just remember getting the record and noticing the cover where there's the like antler head figure, and then noticing all the details.

Like it's sort of cut into quadrants and there are all these different details sprouting out.

And there's the heart.

And the record that I got had this lithograph print of this painting he did of the heart.

And man, his paintings just blow my mind in general, like how detailed they are.

And just thinking about like how many hours and drafts and labor went into the packaging of this this thing.

Like he's truly incredible.

Like, I don't know if you've seen the cover for Hushed and Grim where he has this, like, grid of paintings and it's like, you know, 9 feet by 10 feet or something like that.

Yeah.

He's just like, truly visionary.

And I think, you know, I went to art school around this time that I was discovering all those bands like Baroness John Baisley and his album covers, Paul Romano, Puss Head, who you know, John Baisley loves to and my all time favorite Alphonse Muka.

And they all have this sort of like fantastical quality where they're taking something that's rendered realistically, but they're adding in other elements to make it like a little more creative or supernatural or something like that.

And I've always been really inspired by, you know, trying to have the chops to do things to render realistically, but then make it more interesting or like pair together images that are maybe somewhat unexpected.

So the fact that you know, you're even noticing a through line with my work and Paul Romano, like I'm very humbled and and honored to even be like considered in the same sentence as him.

I think your work's wonderful and it just is there like it seems like you've is there like a particular medium that you're like a fan of?

Like it seems like you've done, like dabbled in all sorts of from digital to, you know, like what it what are you typically like if somebody, if I were to be like, I want a piece of artwork done for my band, Like, you know, it seems like Paul was at least like kind of like let loose.

Have you kind of found a similar thing with the bands that you work with or some of the festivals you work with?

Oh definitely.

I think for traditional art, what I love is like technical pen and ink drawing, like stippling.

And that's what I used to do quite a bit.

And my early work, I was making album covers and merchandise design with that technique, just like drawing everything by hand, then scanning it and cleaning it up and turning it into a digital design.

And sort of through just practicality and needing to speed up my process and needing to digitize things.

I started learning more about graphic design and compositing images and doing digital illustration.

Nowadays, if I'm doing work for bands, I try to do as much digital as I can because those technical drawings can take me like 45 hours to complete depending on the scope.

And it's just a lot, you know, and, and it's not quite sustainable always with like the amount of time you have.

If people have deadlines, you know, I'm doing this on top of working full time, being in three bands, you know, you got to kind of figure out how to make everything work.

And really like I was trained as a traditional artist, so I have that kind of like tactile tendency.

Like I love the feel of paper.

I love texture.

So in my graphic designs, I'm always chasing that.

Like, how can I add this like texture, tactile nature to the designs?

And it is sort of like a different aesthetic.

But I like, I like the process because it's like more immediate and it's easier to be like, oh, oh hey, you want, you want an album cover?

Like here are five different versions that I did digitally versus like, let me do 5 concept sketches and then I'm going to spend 10 hours on each draft.

Like I can only imagine how much time those Paul Romano covers took.

And I remember reading that for Crack the Sky, I think Braun was really particular about that cover.

And so Paul has a bunch of discarded drafts and things like that.

And I can only imagine like just the labor of love that would be because the reality for a lot of bands is like, you don't have a ton of money.

So being an artist, I feel like it's all this balance where like I don't necessarily do it for money because I have a full time job.

It's more like community and you like the band, you like the project, so hey, this will be cool.

I always wanted to do this, you know, let's kill two birds with one stone.

But like, how can we make it sustainable too?

So it's not like a total drag where I'm like, I drew this for six months and I get got 10 bucks, you know?

Yeah, right.

Well, you know, as a as an educator, you know, how maybe like have the make some of the artworks that you've loved growing up and going through music.

How is that maybe like influence how you might teach a student or you know, if you had like maybe a collection or like, hey, if this is something you want to do, take a look at this one or maybe this one.

Is there like maybe particular album artwork that you are fond of that maybe is like kind of like a you should maybe use this or like think about this when doing your own work?

Oh yeah, definitely.

What's interesting is so I do an album cover project because I teach a graphic design class to high school juniors and seniors and I I teach them about like the legacy of graphic design and vinyl records.

And I bring in records and I show them like, you know, you open them up, this is the sleeve, this is the record, this is the label.

And yeah, we had one year like one of those Crosley portable record players.

And so we were like listening and you know, some students are aware and others are like, what is this?

Like this is the old stuff or whatever.

Like, oh, my parents like that.

But what's interesting to me is because of Spotify and digital streaming, a lot of young people like never noticed to album covers and I just it baffles me because I like can't imagine a life without them.

Like, you know, being young for for my generation, our generation, it's it was like CDs and I remember like having 9 inch nails downward spiral on CD and just like looking at the lyrics in din condensed fun and being like that fun is so cool, you know, like this texture is so cool.

When I was like 11, I just can't imagine not having that experience.

So it's all about just like trying to provide an experience similar.

And then as part of music appreciation, it's like, well, if you're listening to this song, like look at the album cover.

Do you are there any colors that come to mind?

Are there any things that inspire you?

Like how does this visual convey the message of what this music is about?

And I hope that it enhances their musical appreciation.

Is there any, like, do you have like, maybe some favorite pieces of work that, you know, you kind of come back to a lot?

Do you have like favorite album covers?

For just myself.

Yeah, I'd love to Yeah, Outside.

I mean, obviously this one's a classic and you know, like the whole discography is just, you know, filled with wonderful artwork, but is there are there like any particular that you you just adore like that you like this is perfect.

Oh totally.

Well 9 nails downward spiral.

I've always loved that.

More recently I mentioned John Baisley.

The Baroness Red and Blue album covers are like 2 of my all time favorites and I just love what he does with his illustrations.

I think he is like a next level visionary.

I also really love there's this artist who's the house designer for Relapse Records named Orion Landau and he did the YAB Clearing a Path to Ascend record cover.

He's he did Interarma Paradise Gallows.

He's just always making amazing record covers.

And what I really like about him is he like thinks outside the box with design, where he has said he's like adding color to metal, which I love because you know, if you sometimes you're like looking through metal album covers and it's just like monochrome Evergreen forest with some mist, you know, And it's, it gets really monotonous.

So I like that he's thinking about creating like something different to stand out.

And he kind of does it all he'll do like graphic design, illustration, painting and photography.

So yeah, he's he's just incredible.

Clearing the path of sin.

I mean, it's like a wonderful record, but like I just instantly go to like that, that mountain range or like whatever, like and it's weird 'cause it feels so like like washed.

But then I'm like, man, that gold like that, that crisp, like gold sun or I don't know, but you're.

Yeah, that's I, I love those.

Having kind of gone through a bit of the production and the history and and the artwork.

Maybe we talk about some of these these tracks.

I know we've touched on it a little bit here.

But like first thing that come like you, you, you turn on the record, you hear that fucking drum fill.

Like Liz, what is like, what's going through your head?

Like what are you?

What are your, what are your, what are you feeling when you listen to this record?

Well, right out of the gate, it just comes out swinging, you know, I, I feel like you're just like, holy shit, you know, you're like hair is blowing back and you're just like, holy crap.

I love the way it comes in with that drum fill the guitar slide the pic slide and then it's like crossing of the threshold.

It's so intense and oh man, yeah, they it's like the first two songs just like Don't stop.

It's like riff, riff, riff.

Every riff counts so much energy and Dang, yeah, it's it's incredible.

It feels like I'm at the like I can picture myself at the base of a mountain and just like, all right, we're sprinting, like the we're just we are going full charge up this thing and like it ain't stopping Dylan.

Like I don't you know, I know this band is very important to you and obviously like I feel like you have it like some some definitely some particular opinions about where it stands, but like, sure.

You know, I mentioned off air that it's hard to call the band the most feral at this point in time because that's remission.

Like to me that just sounds like guys just grinding and out.

But there's a voracity to this album that isn't on the albums before it or the albums after it.

Liz mentioned the 1-2 punch of The Wolf is Loose and Crystal Skull.

Everything counts.

I mean, the drum intro of Crystal Skull, the Scott Kelly vocals at the end that are just vicious sounding.

You know, Brent Hines is ripping solos on that track.

The harmonies and the structure of all that and Braun just like being the fucking creature that he is all locking in while also still playing for the song.

These feel much more song oriented is strange of an idea as that maybe because you look at you know, the the A side of this record is nuts.

I mean, you've got everything from like Prague stuff like on Sleeping Giant with that tremendous intro that it's got that would that would that intro alone is better than some bands best output could ever be.

Like they wish that intro could be their whole output and like they're start to experiment a little bit like on that track, right?

Yeah, it's a single.

It had a really trippy video for it with all of these pink individuals on it.

This sounds like a blending of what's to come and what came before.

It was like I always kind of tossed back to like old Nessie on Remission with this one.

And then you definitely get the ethereal kind of ambient nature of what's to come with Crack the Sky.

But even that track is like pretty lean and mean too.

It's a pretty just it's simply structured.

The guys knew what they wanted.

They wanted these like huge sounding like thunderous Hard Rock songs.

It's honestly not like as metal adjacent as we would think.

It's these huge Hard Rock songs.

I I mean, I don't know, like I feel like, you know, I got into this band because of Dylan, but to me, like having explored some of their discography, like up to this point, it feels like it feels like the weirdest and also let like maybe melodic.

It seems it seems like far more melodic than the previous.

Sure.

Like it just maybe it's too full.

I don't know, like there's just so much going on all the time.

I think there's a lot of, yeah, there is like a lot of different influences.

I also like get like a shit ton of Iron Maiden on this record.

Like there's, there's this like weird, like kind of, I don't know, crawling Iron Maiden groove.

I I've, I've heard it on fucking Crystal Skull 100%.

There's even some solos that sound like Dave Murray or Adrian Smith would have written.

I don't know.

Do you?

It's kind of hard to pick pick one in particular, but Liz is there like maybe like a stand out, stand out moments or like a particular riff that like, hey, this is this record.

Like this is what makes this fucking record, but it's just all over it.

I don't know.

I was trying to pick one while I was writing out my notes, just organizing my thoughts, and I was like, I can't like there's just, there are too many good parts.

This record, and I think a lot of it has to do with the dynamics and contrast to like, the fact that the first two songs are just pummeling and then there's like a hard stop and then it's like Sleeping Giant is this like vast, beautiful, expansive song in the beginning?

Yeah.

I think there's so many incredible moments where they are melting all these different influences together.

And I want to say my favorite thing about this record is really like those moments where the layering of Brent and Troy's vocals is just, it's almost like it reminiscent of Pink Floyd or something where you have these vocal harmonies and you have Brent doing this Aussie type Powell, and then you have Troy doing this lower bellowing thing.

And it just gives me goosebumps every time hearing that and especially listening really closely this time and picking out all the details.

I was like, man, I think this was the first record that they actually used melodic vocals.

And you can kind of see as they continue making music, like Brent becomes more comfortable with his singing voice.

This was very like, like Ozzy howling style.

And then in some of the later records, he's like actually singing softly.

So yeah, I think just the the vocal interplay really makes it for me.

There's a standout Troy vocal performance on multiple tracks on here, but the the two that stand out the most to me, one in particular is right before the Scott entrance into Crystal Skull, Troy does these huge layered, bellowing kind of vocals to kick that in there right before the tribal drums and stuff kick in again.

And it's just it's it's bone chilling, but this mortal soil that is one of the most ethereal and one of the most like melodic things to date.

I've really heard him do.

Although there's some stuff on Emperor of Sand and Hushed and Grim with Troy that is just him singing that is wonderfully beautiful.

But this track, this mortal soil, along with that riff, which it's hard to pick a riff on this record, but that might be my favorite riff on the whole record.

And I've played it for years and Swindle has asked me for years what it is.

But that that song is weird as that song is like the juxtaposition between their two vocal stylings.

Cause Brent is doing this very almost like Southern rock, grizzled kind of Blues hat like Billy Gibbons esque.

Like I, I think they recorded a cover of just got paid maybe in between this and Crack the sky.

So very fitting.

But that track just has some of the weirdest and best sounding vocal performances.

Yeah, I agree.

That's probably my favorite track too, in terms of the riff and the vocals.

And yeah, in my notes, it's like it reminds me of Welcome to the Machine by Pink Floyd.

There we go.

Kind of howling that Troy's doing.

And then, yeah, Brent just comes in with these like super twangy vocals.

I mean, I think it goes without saying.

Ron Taylor.

What the like, what the fuck, man?

Like talk about Sprint, like the stamina for playing.

I couldn't imagine doing at least with the studio.

Maybe like, hey, we'll lay it down, take a break playing it live.

I couldn't imagine doing that.

Obviously like very busy drummer, but he is just playing like, you know, you know, when you listen to record and and Liz mentioned like listening to it and like discovering something new every time you hear it.

I feel like you could go back and just like listen to the fucking drums and be like, what is like like we have to do like kind of a a pretty active listen.

So like I feel like it's almost impossible for me.

Like wait, I got to go back here.

Like what did he do like 4 seconds ago?

And now we're like complete over here.

Such like a like hyper like extreme version of like a Bill Ward.

It's like all feel but yet so technical.

Like he's just really like dancing around like what everyone else is doing and it doesn't feel like it clashes at any point.

It's amazing.

That snare hit never has a stable spot, which is what I love about his drumming.

It's off time, typically at the best in the best way possible.

Everything else is locked in.

You know the this is the album where you get the rhythm section really building its own.

I think Troy and Braun are two of the most underrated, is the most underrated rhythm section kind of in modern metal.

Because I think this band gets viewed in such a different way.

It's viewed as every piece of what's going on in the band.

Everybody has their massive strength for this project, but them as a rhythm section, like are just fucking tied because Braun can't be Braun without a ground and Troy is that ground.

Troy is a fundamental Hard Rock, heavy metal bass player.

He is there to play for the track for the album.

You know, he's mentioned, I believe it was in the kind of behind the scenes for this record that, you know, bronze the match or bronze the bed frame, Troy's the mattress and all the throw pillows and sheets and all this are like Bill and Brent and he's like, why would I step on their toes when they're tremendous?

You know, and and all of this and like you, you get these the wolf is loose moments.

You get these moments in the crystal Skull or circle a sigh squatch or colony, a Burchman where or Braun gets the fucking go off because you've got this great locked in fundamental with this, with this rhythm section.

Obviously there's like a ton of riffs on here.

I've always been a big fan of like, you know, taking some of like the regional aspects of like where this bands from and like I mean there are some like lead lines that feel like a banjo could have played it, you know what I mean?

Like, like and also.

Is that Austin?

What's that?

Which song is that, Austin?

Oh, man, I I want to say, I mean, there's a few, but there is.

How is it?

How do you say it?

Cap Capillarian?

Yeah, that one, the Crest one, It's the toothpaste song.

It's the one tape.

Track that.

Yeah, he did it in one take, right?

Yeah, Matt Bayless said he did that whole solo in the Section 1 take.

Just recorded it.

Whammo.

Done.

It's like I quit.

Right.

Yeah, like there's just so many lines like that and they're like also, I mean a lot of these songs like the lengths are pretty standard.

Like I think we maybe we 5 like of course, like if we're getting down to like obviously the like the last tracks, like a million long or whatever, but most of the the regular songs are like maybe 5 1/2 minutes is the longest, but they're mostly like 3 to 4.

But there's like so many different pieces that you're like, and they're some of those riffs are like like long and it never feels like a slog by by any means.

I just, I don't know.

I'm big fan of like some of the stuff that like this band and like maybe like a Baroness have like incorporated and it's like, Oh wow, like someone's like slighty kind of like open.

It just makes it so much and that I I definitely credit this band and like Baroness with getting me into like a lot more maybe other forms of music that like, oh, where are they pulling that from?

That's like, interesting.

Oh definitely.

Like even on Colony of Birch Men that solo that Brent rips, it's so like classic rock, Southern rock.

There's the chicken picking influence.

Yeah.

It's.

And I mean, his vocals, his solos, they're so much like soul and Blues and like bluegrass in there to Southern rock.

Yeah.

It's just really inspiring to hear it all kind of come together and create this, this flavor of metal.

It's like something really unique to just him as a musician.

Rest in power.

There's we've talked a lot about Troy's vocals, Brent's vocals, bronze performance, their performances.

I I would hate to not mention the importance of what Bill Kelleher is to this band.

Bill is the rift guy.

There are great songs.

Brent is a songwriter.

Brent was a song guy.

The rift came second.

Bill is like, I got 2 riffs.

These have to be in there.

There's also also the fact that Bill has worked with Braun for an eternity from going as far back as lethargy today as the day prior projects, right?

And I think you get more evidence of the Bill Kelleher influence on this record on the back half of this record a lot.

But I would also like to throw in like circle a sigh squatch any of the big chunky, thunderous heavy riffs.

That's Bill.

Like you can hear that like you look at Austin you mentioned like the ending of what?

Yeah, the ass beating Riff and fucking Hunters of the Sky is like, I mean, don't get me wrong, there's a lot of like cool fucking technical shit on here, but sometimes just an ass beating riff is like enough for me to like, this is the heaviest thing ever.

This is my favorite thing.

I love this.

I mean, there's Bill's the importance of Bill from, I think from this era to later era, Mastodon.

Like if you look at an album like Once More Around the Sun, which is like a real almost like it, it kind of feels just like a like a rock'n'roll record from the early 90s because it's all songs.

And then you look at Emperor of Sand, you just, his hands are all over it.

And you kind of go back and listen these early records with hindsight and you're like, Oh yeah, that's a Bill riff.

That's a Bill riff.

That's a Bill riff.

And Bill is like riffmaster general, you know, at a point in time, Like, Britt and Bill to me were like Hetfield or Hetfield and Hammond to me, they were like, you know, Scott Gorham and whoever he was paired with at different points in time.

Like seriously, Like there's been Lizzie all over this record.

And obviously there's all of that on this record, too.

Yeah, and but the, the B side of this record, the four songs, you know, Hundreds of the Sky, Hand of Stone, This Mortal Soil and Siberian Divide are just a freak out.

It's just 25 minutes a freak out.

And it's so awesome.

It's like for every second you're breathing, there's a riff being played and they come back to them or they have a nuanced version of it.

Like you look at those big sliding cords in Siberian Divide that ended up, there's a variation of it each different time it's played.

You know, it's got different stops and different starts.

And I mean, holy shit, this is just a what?

A record to drop is your major label debut.

It would almost be like if if Nirvana dropped in Utero first.

On the topic of Bill, he has this great video that is like how to take an ordinary riff and make it extraordinary or something like that.

Yes.

Have you watched that?

Yeah.

So I was just watching it the other day and being like, wow, man, wow.

It's just every single thing he was playing.

I was like, wow, like I I see what he's doing there.

And yeah, whatever he would think is like a mid riff.

It's like probably the best I could do, you know, if even that, you know, it's just like, man, it's awesome.

Is there do you guys, I, I said my favorite, I don't know if you guys have like Liz, is there like a particular favorite riff or like riffs throughout the runtime of the record?

I think the main riff of This Mortal Soil is my favorite.

Yeah, I just, I love the vibe of that riff, like with the vocals and everything.

Yeah.

I think in Siberian Divide, that main riff is also like one of the riffs I think of as being quintessentially Mastodon without those, like, voicing that melodic dissonance and like, Chicken Picken kind of feel that would make me like fall in love with this band because I was like, wow, they do this thing.

Oh.

Man, this mortal soil, like it's just it's there that that's probably 1 of that might be my favorite deep cut Mastodon track too, because there's just so much going on in there and it has every aspect of stuff.

I love the intro to circle a side Squatch is as simplistic as it is.

It's so effective for what it is.

Let's see the the ending riff of Colony of Birchman for everything that's going on.

It's just a kind of a standard kind of hammer on pull off kind of thing, but there's this tremendous walking or descending baseline that takes place right as it kicks into the solo that adds an element to it.

I would even say the ending riff of Siberian Divide when it's just them just fucking going at it.

Like there's so many things on here that are just classic Mastodon and I think that's where the sound fully finalized was This record, you got it with the 1st 2 records, but you get this album and it's like here it is.

This is what the band is going to sound like and always keep it.

But I I don't want to miss like Pendulous Skin doesn't have any riffs in it, but it is a perfect ending to this wild and crazy tale that you have that I would love to see a graphic novel done of something like this or, or, or some sort of story like, you know, Coed and Cambria's done it for years.

But like, give me one on this band to where it's like, yeah, let's how much acid did you guys really take?

Like there's a there's a great story around this album where they got hooked up with the Foo Fighters somehow and they all went to a movie theater and I think dropped acid and watched the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie.

I mean.

It didn't was that they were on it, right?

They were.

They were in it.

Yes, they were.

Cut you up with a linoleum knife.

Liz, I, you know, we, we kind of talked off air about this final track and I, I think it's just kind of like a perfect piece, as Dylan mentioned, you know, going through like the fucking gauntlet of this record and then getting to this track.

What does it mean to you?

What does pencilless skin mean to you as like kind of the the bow on the record?

Ah man.

Well it just is such a different tone from the rest of the record and it's sort of like everything gets quiet and there's like 1 little sound and then it comes in with that quiet arpeggiated art acoustic riff, although it's not a riff chord progression and it's just like the most beautiful thing.

And then it breaks into this like part with an organ and vibrato and this washed out vocal thing and can't really make out the vocals but it almost sounds like I'm on my way down or something like that.

And in thinking about this like Hero's journey, the resolution of it all, it kind of feels like this post apocalyptic vibe where like, did you get to the top with the crystal skull and complete the mission or are you just like disintegrating into an abyss, Right.

You know?

Yeah, I just think it's like a beautiful piece to end the record with.

And it really just makes the record 'cause I feel like it makes it stand out from the rest of the songs and it just, it's like a mic drop moment, you know?

Right.

I think, you know, as far as like coming out on the other side of it, I don't, it's not really anything I would.

I can't imagine changing anything about this record.

It feels like 1 fluid, solid journey.

It's very forward moving, even though there are like moments of like like rest and kind of sitting in, you know, there's atmosphere.

But for the most part, I mean, it's just like, yeah, I've said a million times, it's lean.

It's like there's no fad on this record.

It's.

It's damn near perfect.

I like, I can't again, I don't know if it's, I just can't think of anything that I would really change and you know it, it definitely got some some great reception that I think it was like their their biggest selling record to date.

It outsold Leviathan after it came out.

I think they appeared on like Conan O'Brien.

They made their television debut after this record.

You know, I I mean, if you even if these things matter, it's like, you know, they got nominated for a Grammy like when it came out.

Slayer ultimately ended up winning that.

But yeah, there's just so many.

Like it even had a a video game.

I don't know if anybody saw that there was.

AI didn't know that.

Yeah, it was like a little like side scroller.

Fucking.

That's amazing.

I don't know how you would have gotten if it was just available online, but I always love when like is, is there like a record that comes to mind that has like maybe like a weird kind of like promotional thing tied to it that you guys can think of?

Like I feel like maybe at the time of like records coming out, there might have been like, like, I don't know, like something online that you could find or like dial into or something.

I don't know.

Wasn't there something that Radiohead did with a video game for Kid A or like the Kid a amnesiac record?

I think it was on PlayStation something rather.

I didn't try it 'cause I'm not a gamer, but but yeah, I, I saw it and I was like, oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, I mean we talked to thou and they mentioned like you could they there was like a video game that they were kind of like tied with that they did provided some of the music for like the the new record.

I guess like you could like find the different songs hidden throughout the video game and listen to umbilical like early.

Really.

That's awesome.

That was crazy.

But you know, like they, you know, of course this band is known to tour.

I think you know, I mentioned before they were touring with Slayer.

They toured with Slayer again through the the cycle of this record.

They did a headlining tour with Converge in the Bronx following this album.

They even supported Tool after the 10,000 Days album that Dylan had mentioned.

And so I mean, you know, really just hitting the road again.

I think maybe this was like a longer span of time in between records?

What is like 4-5 years perhaps?

3/3 it was between 3:00 between this and Crack the Sky.

And around the end of this album cycle, there was something that took place at a video, I believe it was an MTV Awards or Video Music Awards, where that's where Brent suffered his head injury.

I'm not going to get into the full story of that.

We'll save that for a later date.

But he suffered A traumatic brain injury during this point, which kind of helped affect what was to come with the next record.

But the band toured their ass off during this point, the Unholy Alliance tour, which the DVD was released for, you know, multiple like arena shows and stadium shows in Europe.

They open for Metallica and like stadiums in Europe, which is documented I believe on the making of the Crack of the Sky release.

One thing I want to point out is we have talked about this man prior.

We've also talked about the band about Dimension, which is Lamb of God, Lamb of God or Ashes of the Wake and Leviathan dropped on the very same day in 2004, which was August 31st I believe.

But they released 2 records in the same year.

Yet again.

You've got Sacrament which came out in August and almost a month apart, like released in August and then this record released in September.

So you've got a lot of crazy records coming out during this time frame of all of these newer bands that are coming out.

I mean, you've got like Isis and absence of truth came out the same year too.

You know, if you've got AI believe you had a Kylesa record in O 6 as well.

So like the underground is still pushing out all of these fantastic records and to know that some of those people from the underground are hitting major labels and the labels are kind of leaving them alone.

They're not going hey, do this, do that.

They're kind of doing it and just letting them have at it.

You know, Liz mentioned against me earlier like thrash Unreal, which was off of the new wave record from O 7, which is another fantastic record that was on I think, like Sire Records, which is another subsidiary of Warner Brothers or was record labels don't really matter at this point, but like all of these bands are releasing these like fantastic releases and they're generally being left alone now.

follow-ups, who knows, but Mastodon had a killer year in O6.

It seemingly just didn't stop from the point that they started touring in 2002 thousand they didn't stop, they didn't slow down.

I mean these guys were getting in the van.

I think there's a quote of like, who can you get in a van with and eat mustard sandwiches with and just keep going.

And like when shit gets real, you just keep pushing through it and pushing through it.

And they reached the top of the peak, and they found the crystal skull.

Liz, you know, having talked about this record and had really like dug deep, what do you hope people get out of it?

What do you like why?

Why this record out of all the records we could have picked, you know, why Blood Mountain?

When you check it out now, what do you get out of it when people listen to it like 10-15, fifty years from now?

What do you hope people get out of it when they listen to it?

I hope that they'll just be able to hear this really amazing, unique sludge metal record, Prague metal, whatever you want to categorize it as.

And maybe it can be like a gateway band into them discovering like all these other amazing bands in that sub genre and subculture and all those bands that I discovered, you know, back in 2007 that changed my trajectory.

Like, I hope that, you know, people in the future could also experience that as well.

Well, talk about the record.

I definitely don't want to keep you much on because you've you've thank you so much for taking your time out and spending your evening with us.

I I know we have some recommendations.

I would love to know what Liz Walshack has been listening to as of late.

Could be heavy, could be none.

What what are you listening to?

What should the people check out?

I have been listening to Amel and the Sniffers on repeat all year.

I know that they are blowing up right now and playing sold out shows all over the world it seems.

But yeah, I, I've loved their records, Cartoon darkness and comfort.

To me, those are just two masterpieces.

And I feel like they have this reputation of, you know, people will be like, oh, they're really raunchy.

You know, when I say, oh, listen to Amyl and the Sniffers and sure, they have that facade, but if you actually listen to the lyrics, like, they're very intelligent, very clever, very feminist.

Yeah.

Amy Taylor is incredible.

She's like such a good role model in my opinion.

So I've been listening to them and Lambrini Girls and I'm just like and this other band Die Spitz.

Die Spitz for the metal fans.

I feel like y'all would like Die Spitz a lot because they're very riffy and some of their songs sound like Babes in Toyland.

It's like very like heavy grunge and they're just like young women and they have this like amazing, like rock songs, growls, feminist undertones.

It's like everything I look for in a band, really.

Dylan, you've been listening to anything as of late.

I have obviously there was a huge drop of records at the end of October, which is like, it's so hard to pick from that.

There were so many great ones, but one I was looking forward to the most was the newest release from One of Nine, which is their sophomore released through Profound Lore.

If you know anything about this band, they are a yet another black metal band that is writing about Tolkien mythologies.

But this record kills.

It is fantastic.

It's got a holder coming on doing some guest vocals on there, like get into the lore of Tolkien if you're into it, but this records lean.

It's like 45 minutes long.

It's great.

I think along with the Black Braid release that came out earlier this year and the upcoming Lamp of Murmur release, I think we've got some really good black metal records that are coming out.

Another one that kind of caught me by surprise.

Not a band that I have paid a ton of attention to throughout the years.

The newest Acacia Strain record.

It's like a it's like a blending of death metal and sludge that really got me.

It's got guest spots from oh, sorry, it's got a guest watch from Blackwater, Holy Light on it on a couple tracks, like a huge 13 minute doom track at the end of this thing.

And the record's only 30 minutes long.

And then you've got the guys from God's Hate on there as well.

Like it's great workout music if that's what you're looking for.

But it's also showing that a band that's got a career that's 25 years long can still release topical and really catchy records and still be heavy and, you know, not derivative the entire time.

So check those out.

My recommendation is actually a recommendation that Liz gave me a little while back.

Latitudes agonist from 20 or 2009 UK based sludge postmodal band.

This is a debut record.

It fucking rules.

I don't like I don't really know how to put it.

It is it's heavy and just like also kind of like just punches you in the gut like right out of the like.

I just, it's so like emotional and like impactful.

Like where did you discover this band?

Like, you know, I, I really appreciate it.

It was such a fun listen.

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Yeah, that band I think was just on some list.

If you like Mastodon, you would like Latitudes.

And they do have a lot of kind of like Mastodonian tendencies, but they definitely stand out as as their own.

But yeah, I mean, some of their vocals and their guitar work, is it really just like, hits you right in the feels and then it still rips.

And their album artwork for that record is also incredible.

So check it out.

Yeah.

Fuck yeah.

Check out C, Check out Glacier.

You guys have been you played a quite a few different shows this year.

I know you played with Pelican, you played with our friends in Chain to the bottom, the ocean like a few weeks ago.

You know how how has it been this year?

Like just in general?

I mean like you joined Glacier maybe at the tail end of last year, is that correct?

Yeah, so how we've had quite a year and I'm just like so grateful to be working with those guys.

They are like the kindest humans and really good at what they do.

And yeah, how it came about was that we made friends because C and Glacier would play together in Boston, and I've been doing album artwork for them since 2017.

I did the album artwork for A Distant Violent Shudder and they invited me to come into the studio and do guest noise, vocals and guitar noise.

So that was really fun because one day they were just like, hey, come into the studio, we're here like till tomorrow.

And I had like no practice or anything.

I was like, all right, I'll just like wing it, you know.

So I get to the studio and they're like, just like, scream your head off like a banshee, you know, kind of like, you know, Mastodon, like Cedric and Mastodon.

So I, yeah, I just did that thing.

And then the way it's mixed, it's not really front and center, so it's kind of buried in the song.

Distant violin.

But if you listen closely, you can hear it after the 10 minute mark.

And I guest performed with them at their record release show last October.

It was just about a year ago we had, you know, 4 Les Pauls, four half stacks, just like tearing down the walls of this venue in Medford called Deep Cuts.

And like the ceiling was literally like sprinkling down on us.

And then their old guitar player Matt left the band and he plays in Junius and Circus Trees.

So they called me up and they were like, hey, do you want to fill in?

And they called me up again and they were like, hey, we got invited to play China and I was like, I'm in, brother.

So.

So yeah, we've had like quite the year.

And yeah, I've just enjoyed every single second of it.

It's been really awesome.

It's so cool.

I saw the footage, was that can fest?

Yeah, can fest.

Unreal.

It's so cool.

It really was unreal.

And I, I we were going to try to go to, I believe you guys were also made an appearance at Post Fest this year in Indy.

I mean, like Emma, Ruth, Rundle and Pelican was there.

I mean, just like the names.

And yeah, that's, that's got to be like such a whirlwind of like, I don't know, such seems like such a cool experience.

Yeah, it's been amazing and Post Fest was amazing.

And yeah, it's been really nice to sort of like reconnect with the post metal community and even like this podcast, it's like they're people who just genuinely care about the music and you can connect with them.

I felt that it post fest, I felt that it can fest.

And yeah, it's just, it's really cool to see like how many people care about organizing events and networking and keeping in touch with artists and pedal builders and other musicians.

Yeah, it's just, it's awesome.

So it's been, it's been a really incredible year.

And if you get the chance to go to post Fest, like absolutely do it because the there's just nothing but good vibes there and stellar line up and people are there to like actually listen and support the bands and buy merch, say hello.

It really does have like a really awesome community feel.

I love that and you know, I know there's not like a ton of the year left, maybe even looking ahead to next year, like you've accomplished so much this year.

Like is there anything, whether musically and art or just in life that you hope to accomplish in in 2026 is I know you got a few things you're working on.

You know it, whether whatever you can share with us, I'd love to know what you have coming up and just all aspects of your creativity.

So Glacier is planning a European Tour and we have some things booked, but nothing's announced yet.

So you could just, you know, follow us or whatever and keep an eye out for announcements.

Yeah, that's, that's what I'm looking forward to the most next year.

And I don't know if I'll top this year because it was just like absolutely insane all the awesome things that I got to do.

But hey, if if I can top it, I welcome any new opportunities and experiences.

I'm always down for the adventure.

Oh yeah, Well, listen to all Liz's projects.

If you need some album artwork or just some great design work, hit her up.

Liz, thank you so, so much for taking the time out to speak with us for so long and talk to us about all the things you got going on and this fucking record.

I I really, really appreciate it.

Oh, thank you so much.

It's really been a pleasure.

You can follow us it it's down below anyway, for myself or Dylan, for Liz.

You've been listening to Riff Worship.

We'll be back next week with something else.

See ya.