mastodon is a big name in today's metal scene. as i seem to live under a rock from time to time, i managed to not pay attention to them until last year. i grabbed a copy of their compilation release 'call of the mastodon' at burnout store hamburg. from that point on i was lost to this prehistorical mammoth. since relapse is re-pressing a lot of their back catalogue it was pretty easy to get a hold on the first few records of mastodon.
with 'blood mountain' it's different. sure, the vinyl version was also handled by relapse back in 2006 and the first two pressings came out through relapse, but the rights were only licensed by reprise records - the label mastodon signed to for their third record. as reprise wasn't that outgoing when it came to re-presses, which was a mistake of mine that i will explain in a moment, i waited for my chances.
the chance came in the shape of an auction on the bay. i payed about the same amount which is recently asked on discogs, only for a flawless copy plus i just had to pay domestic shipping rates. so, a good deal in my book. i already had a clear blue copy of the rsd '10 re-press by reprise, which i sold by now, and i have to say the gatefold of the relapse pressing looks way better than the reprise sleeve. that paul romano artwork is incredibly awesome. love it!
musically 'blood mountain' is a masterpiece. can't decide which record i love more, 'leviathan' or this. doesn't matter though, in such cases i'm happy about being undecided. check out 'hunters of the sky' and 'colony of birchmen'. face melting! if you want a new copy of that killer record hassle-free, you can easily order a recent reprise re-press on green vinyl. so much for reprise's limited re-press policy! thankfully they are going to give 'crack the skye' a re-issue too. looking forward to it. 500 copies on real nice clear red and yellow split vinyl. relapse. 2006.
