MASTODON: First Part Of 'Emperor Of Sand' Tour Recap (Video)

Atlanta progressive metallers MASTODON have posted the first part of a video recap of the band’s “Emperor Of Sand” tour.

Says the group: “As we gear up to jump back on the road, we wanted to share a little behind the scenes from our last tour. Our good buddy, Danger Ehren, joined us on the road for a few days to capture the magic! Here’s the first clip of Troy talking tour life as he works on his knuckle ball! Stay tuned for more!”

As previously reported, MASTODON has recorded a “heavy” new song which it plans to release soon. The track was recorded last month at the band’s new studio and marks MASTODON‘s first new material since 2017’s “Emperor Of Sand”.

Speaking to U.K.’s Kerrang! magazine, MASTODON guitarist Brent Hinds described the tune as “a fun listen,” while fellow axeman Bill Kelliher said that it was “a basher” and “brutal.” Drummer Brann Dailor concurred, telling the publication: “It’s as heavy as I’ve heard us in a while.”

MASTODON‘s new song, which will feature a guest appearance by NEUROSIS‘s Scott Kelly, is scheduled to receive a digital release ahead of the band’s upcoming U.K. shows.

Last August, Dailor told Consequence Of Sound that MASTODON will begin work on the follow-up to “Emperor Of Sand” in earnest this year.

“We’re always a work in progress, trying to figure out what we’re going to do next,” he said. “We’re letting the ideas just come and setting them to the side for future work, and once in a while just sort of saying out loud what those ideas might be — whether they’re collected onstage when we’re doing soundcheck or if they are something that gets worked on backstage. You hear somebody noodling, and you’re, like, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ Whenever the ears perk up to either Brent or Bill doing something backstage, that’s always a nice little surprise.”

He added: “Once we get home, and we decompress from the ‘Emperor Of Sand’ tour cycle, sometime early next year, we’ll start dumping out the riffs and seeing what’s new and seeing what’s fresh and what we’re digging on, and then we’ll just start working — do what we normally do.”

MASTODON won a Grammy in the “Best Metal Performance” category at the 60th annual Grammy Awards in January 2018 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. MASTODON got the nod for the song “Sultan’s Curse” from “Emperor Of Sand”, with the latter also being nominated for “Best Rock Album.” It was the fourth and fifth time MASTODON had received Grammy nominations, having missed out on the three previous occasions — “Colony Of Birchmen” (2007), “Curl Of The Burl” (2012) and “High Road” (2015) — it had been up for the “Best Metal Performance” award.