Mastodon have started teasing what appears to be a previously unreleased song, Fallen Torches.
Mastodon have been working on new ideas for the follow-up to 2017’s Emperor Of Sand since late 2019 – and it looks like the band are now gearing up to gave fans some fresh music as soon as this Friday.
The Atlanta metal titans are encouraging fans to "light the torch" over at lightthetorch.mastodonrocks.com, with a snippet of a song titled Falling Torches able to be heard once you've signed up to their newsletter. It's also being speculated that a compilation album, Medium Rarities, is being released on September 11 – with more info on that hopefully coming soon.
As for Fallen Torches, many have noted that this could be the song that the band had teased to Kerrang! all the way back in January last year. It features Neurosis’ Scott Kelly according to the quartet, with Mastodon guitarist Bill Kelliher calling it both “a basher” and “brutal”, and drummer Brann Dailor saying, “It’s as heavy as I’ve heard us in a while.”
Read this: Mastodon: 20 years of triumph, tragedy and scaling the metal mountain
Recently, when talking about the direction of their forthcoming new record, Bill considered that fans might be surprised – or even unhappy – with what's to come.
“Let’s put it this way: when we put a record out and there’s half of our fans like, ‘Fuck these guys! They’re fucking selling out or they’re turning a certain corner where we don’t feel comfortable here anymore,’” he said. “I feel like, ‘You know what? We’re gaining more people over here because we’re actually growing as a band; because I’m still writing.’”
Detailing Mastodon's evolution, he continued: “For me, our band, if you put our first album against even three or four albums ago, you’d be like, ‘These are the same band? Holy shit.’ It is no exception with our latest record that we’re working on.
“It’s moving forward, and we’re kind of turning the corner to the next thing. I can’t sit still in the same… like AC/DC – awesome band – every record they got to a point where they just have the same formula, three chords – awesome three chords. The Ramones, same thing; Slayer, same kind of thing. It really just kind of gotten that groove, I don’t want everyone to get in that groove.”
Anyway, if you want an idea of what Mastodon and Scott Kelly sound like together… well, check this out:
