Mastodon – “Fallen Torches”

Mastodon – “Fallen Torches”

Right now, the long-running Atlanta prog-metal greats Mastodon are working on a new album, and they’ve also reportedly got a song on the soundtrack of the forthcoming cinematic epic Bill & Ted Face The Music. But the band has also left a trail of stray tracks over the years, and they’ve just announced that they’ll collect a bunch of those songs on a new compilation called Medium Rarities. (Get it? You get it.)

Medium Rarities will feature a bunch of assorted Mastodon ephemera from over the years: Instrumental versions, live tracks, B-sides, songs from soundtracks. (“White Walker,” the band’s contribution to one of the Game Of Thrones mixtapes, is on there.) The comp will also feature Mastodon’s covers of songs by Feist, the Flaming Lips, the Butthole Surfers, and Metallica. And today, the band has shared the previously unreleased banger “Fallen Torches.”

According to Louder, Mastodon recorded “Fallen Torches” last year, but they left it on the shelf because they wanted instead to focus on their cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven,” their tribute to late manager Nick John. The song features a guest vocal from Scott Kelly, frontman of the legendary Neurosis and longtime Mastodon collaborator. It’s a heavy, instinctive ripper of a song, and it sounds like the kind of thing that Mastodon might’ve dropped 15 years ago. Check it out below, along with the Medium Rarities tracklist.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Fallen Torches”
02 “A Commotion” (Feist Cover)
03 “Asleep In The Deep” (Instrumental version)
04 “Capillarian Crest” (Live)
05 “A Spoonful Weighs A Ton” (The Flaming Lips cover)
06 “Toe To Toes” (Instrumental version)
07 “Circle Of Cysquatch” (Live)
08 “Atlanta” (Butthole Surfers cover)
09 “Jaguar God” (Instrumental)
10 “Cut You Up With A Linoleum Life”
11 “Blood & Thunder” (Live)
12 “White Walker”
13 “Halloween” (Instrumental version)
14 “Crystal Skull” (Live)
15 “Orion” (Metallica cover)
16 “Iron Tusk” (Live)

Medium Rarities is out 10/16 on Reprise.

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