LIVE AT THE ARAGON

'Live at the Aragon' is the first live album from Mastodon, recorded in 2009 during the band's world tour in support of their acclaimed fourth studio album 'Crack the Skye', and subsequently released in 2011 through Reprise Records as a box including the recording of the show, a DVD as well as a video (or rather, "album film") accompanying the studio LP in its entirety, played during live shows as a multimedia background for the music. The venue is the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago and the setlist includes the full performance of 'Crack the Skye', featuring all seven tracks from that album as well as five more songs from each of the band's first three albums with a cover of Melvins' 'The Bit' closing off the show. With the addition of keyboard player Derek Mitchka for the 'Crack the Skye' part of this live album, Mastodon deliver a passionate, precise and energizing performance of some significant compositions of theirs.

Apparently, one could not expect anything less from a band so talented and technically skilled, all the instrumental work on here is pretty flawless. At the same time, the live vocals seem to be a problem, since much of the clean singing is too weak or out of key, and while drummer Brann Dailor's performance is at a decent level, the vocals of Brent Hinds come up as incredibly irritating and obnoxious. For what concerns Troy Sanders, his harsh vocals overshadow the clean ones, but his prevalent singing is also really exhaustive (he sings on all twelve entries here). On top of that, there is little to no improvisation or play-around with the songs; not that Mastodon's songs aren't entertaining enough but a bit more space for improvisation could have rendered this live recording into a much more impressive and livelier representation of the band's strengths. All in all, this recording is not on par with the flawless studio sound of Mastodon, and while the demanding technicality of the music necessitates lots of focus and endurance, 'Live at the Aragon' impresses more by the end when the heavier tracks come in and the gritty harsh vocals are at play. A [not so] good example of how the clean vocals butcher some of the performances is 'The Last Baron', otherwise one of the best songs in this entire catalogue.