Across their catalog, Mastodon scream about walking trees and assassinated czars; giant sharks and steam-breathers; sex in space and sleep undersea. But despite their predilections towards heavy-metal high fantasy, the Atlanta band have been, and always will be, peddlers of the cold, hard, extremely loud truth. “We tend to channel any and all emotions through this art that we call Mastodon,” bassist Troy Sanders said in an interview last Spring in anticipation of Emperor of Sand, a collectively-written account of cancer struggle masquerading as a prog-metal-spiked Arabian Nights. (Three members of Mastodon had family members battling the disease.) By expressing their present personal pain in terms of mythic beings, deadly monsters, and wrecking-ball riffs, the band don’t just own their anguish; they make a cosmic spectacle of it, typically a top-notch one at that.
Mastodon’s new EP, Cold Dark Place, is primarily sourced from a single tormented soul: Brent Hinds, the band’s fleet-fingered, sludgy-throated, erstwhile-penis-statue-carving axeman/vocalist. Originally conceived and composed as a solo album, this four-track effort—the contents of which originated during the sessions for their last two albums—eventually blossomed into a de facto Mastodon record. The final product, while technically credited to the full band, is distinctly Hinds’ own, all daredevil guitar stunts and quaking, crooned refrains: a satisfying, if nonessential, dose of latter-day Mastodon, not to mention a compelling self-portrait.
Where Emperor of Sand found its creators self-immolating in a far-off desert, Cold Dark Place hits closer to home. The band’s southern roots are on full display here thanks to Hinds’ latest weapon of choice: a 1954 Sho-Bud 13-string pedal steel guitar he acquired several years ago, fully outfitted with knee and foot-benders. Texturally alluring and technically intimidating, the Sho-Bud comes with a steep learning curve; most axemen spend their whole careers trying to reap its atmospheric rewards. Not so for Hinds, whose mastery of the instrument is clear within seconds of six-minute opener “North Side Star.” As his dulcet wails and arpeggios drift around the cavernous sonic space like phantasms in the night, the Sho-Bud transmogrifies and warps, a bluegrass instrument on a terrifying acid trip. Halfway through their psychedelic journey, the spell breaks, giving way to a southern-fried boogie that reeks of funk, but mostly dread.
This game of stylistic hopscotch, as with most of Mastodon’s records, is the EP’s M.O. “Blue Walsh,” a holdover from the days of 2014’s Once More ’Round the Sun led by drummer Brann Dailor, snakes between prickly psych-pop à la Pinback and the usual syncopated sludge. Lead single “Toe to Toes,” meanwhile, pits Hinds’ arena-friendly choruses against his bandmates’ bruising breakdowns. The EP’s mercurial sprawl, coupled with its lack of overarching narrative, occasionally makes the band susceptible to slog, primarily on the concluding title track: a downtempo ballad similarly dominated by Hinds’ Sho-budding and singing. It spends far too much time flopping around in the muck, rendering a painstakingly-crafted finale dynamically dull; Hinds’ uncharacteristically muffled vocals, which sound as though they were recorded through a microphone filled with cotton balls, don’t make things any easier.
Near the end of “Toe to Toes,” though, Hinds sheds light on his life as a raconteur rock star. “I played the fool/I played the sinner/I played the part of me that no one wanted to see,” bleats the face-tatted southerner, in a rare show of intimacy. Therein lies the record’s central conceit: the real cold dark place is the heart of the man who made it. Hinds said so himself in a recent interview with Loudwire, going on to reveal the EP’s big takeaway as “the concept of living and how much it hurts to fucking be alive.” And yet, however thematically mired in misery, Cold Dark Place plays out as a triumphant march into the darkness: one man’s pain, collectively conjured and conquered.
