Artist: Mastodon
Album: Cold Dark Place EP
Genre: Progressive Metal
Release Date: 2017
Audio Format:: FLAC (tracks) 24 bit, 44,1 kHz
Duration: 21:51
Total Tracks: 4
Total Size: 263 MB

Tracklist:

1. Mastodon – North Side Star (06:10)
2. Mastodon – Blue Walsh (05:12)
3. Mastodon – Toe to Toes (04:29)
4. Mastodon – Cold Dark Place (05:59)

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A new EP featuring four previously unreleased tracks via Reprise Records. Three of the tracks, “North Side Star,” “Blue Walsh,” and “Cold Dark Place,” were recorded during the sessions for Mastodon’s 2014 album Once More ‘Round The Sunand were produced by Nick Raskulinecz. A fourth track, “Toe to Toes,” was recorded during the sessions for the band’s most recent album, 2016’s Emperor of Sand, and was produced by Brendan O’Brien.2017’s ambitious full-length Emperor of Sand saw the progressive/sludge metal veterans delivering a heavy-hearted concept album about grief, and while Cold Dark Place’s title would suggest an extension of that narrative, it’s more of a loosely knit addendum that illuminates the latter outings’ soul-searching proclivities by proxy. Only the second proper EP from the band — the songs on 2001’s Lifesblood eventually made their way onto the 2006 compilation Call of the Mastodon — three of Cold Dark Place’s cuts (“North Side Star,” “Blue Walsh,” and the brooding, acoustic- and pedal steel guitar-heavy title track) were recorded during the sessions for 2014’s Once More ‘Round the Sun, and they reflect that LP’s somber tone and predilection towards accessible hard rock songcraft. The one semi-outlier is the thunderous and almost affable “Toe to Toes” — recorded during the making of Emperor of Sand — which contrasts its nostalgia-driven tale of coming to terms with losing someone you love with meaty, Torche-esque major key riffage and copious earworm melodies. – James Christopher Monger