MASTODON: Photos From The Studio Posted Online

Atlanta progressive metallers MASTODON have entered the studio to begin recording the follow-up to 2009's "Crack the Skye", tentatively due before the end of the year. Photos from the studio can be found at MastodonRocks.com. A few of the pictures can be seen below.

In a recent interview with AOL's Noisecreep, MASTODON drummer Brann Dailor stated about the band's new material, "It doesn't seem as proggy. There's moments, but it seems more riff-oriented. It seems a little more stripped down. [2004's] 'Leviathan' was a little more stripped down, and it feels like that to me. Everything always changes once you go in the studio, but at the moment it seems like a really super-heavy LED ZEPPELIN or something. It has a lot of that [John] Bonham-esque groove to it, but really heavy and dark. I really like playing like that, and when it goes into those parts, I'm psyched."

When asked if guitarist and vocalist Brent Hinds is once again responsible for most of the initial songwriting on the new CD, Dailor replied, "I think it's a little more collaborative, with everyone chipping in. Brent has a lot of great stuff. [Guitarist] Bill [Kelliher]'s got a lot of cool riffs, too. There are so many, it's hard to know which ones we're gonna use. But we go in and jam all the time and record stuff. Then we sort it out later."

On the topic of which producer will be at the helm for the new MASTODON album, Dailor said, "We don't need that much production. We just need to get in a room with somebody and hit record, and if they have some cool ideas, that's cool, too. But I don't feel we lack any vision as a band. We usually have everything mapped out, as far as how the story line goes and what the visual imagery looks like. And that kind of plays in your head along with the riffage. We're pretty good at arranging and making the parts flow as a song. We just kind of need somebody to put the mics in the right spots and make it sound great and feed our egos as we go along."