Ranking Scott Kelly's Mastodon Songs

You may have heard there's a new Mastodon album coming soon.  Emperor of Sand will be released March 31, and the three advance tracks have me excited for a 'Don album for the first time in what feels like forever.  In anticipation of the new record, I've been listening to a lot of Mastodon, which inevitably means I'm hearing some Scott Kelly.  The Neurosis co-frontman and guitarist has appeared on every Mastodon album since Leviathan (and has confirmed an appearance on Emperor of Sand), and his presence typically results in his track being one of the stand out songs on the album.  So I decided to rank Kelly's Mastodon collaborations and ruminate on each one, if only because March 31 seems like too long to wait to write anything about Mastodon.

Mastodon - Once More 'Round The Sun

In 2006, Mastodon released Blood Mountain, the first metal album I bought and one that was hugely instrumental in my becoming the metalhead I am today; two years prior the band had released Leviathan, an album that wound up not only on many an Album of the Year list, but also quite a few Album of the Decade lists as well. In 2009, the band released quite possibly my favorite album ever, the brilliant Crack the Skye, and then in 2011 the enjoyable-if-unspectacular The Hunter. This mini history lesson serves two purposes: First, it lays my Mastodon fandom right there on the table, in the open, before I go any further with this review. Second, it's there to point out that after a trio of albums most bands would kill for, Mastodon sort of took a step back with The Hunter. It's a fun album, one that's quite good at times, but it still stands as the weak link in what was one of the strongest discographies in 21st century metal, and for the first time, allowed just a sliver of doubt to approach the band. Their new album, Once More 'Round the Sun, represents the band at a crossroads: would they return to being one of the pioneers of American metal, seemlessly blending genres while creating classic albums? Or would they continue to drift toward fun yet forgettable records, made up of a hodge podge of rock-metal tracks?