Is producer Mike Elizondo a weird match for Mastodon? Do you foresee Mastodon jamz with funky beats and cloying catchphrases? Is this pairing the result of label meddling, artist contrarianism, and/or ambition? Will Elizondo grapple with the Mastodon sensibility or is he a mute concession to a returns-hungry record label?

Mastodon’s triumphant 2009 album  Crack The Skye was helmed by Brendan O’Brien, a super hands-on producer. Far from the type to cover his face with a newspaper and fall asleep at the mixing board, dude will play on your jam, co-write it, and arrange it. He gets up in there. It’s like having an extra band member who can play instruments that require study and who owns a studio.

So, it may mean something that Mastodon’s forthcoming fifth album will be produced by a maker of vacuous pop music for Alanis Morissette, Pink, and Maroon 5. A hip hop beat button-pusher! A bass player!! Well, that’s Mike Elizondo, whose recent track record includes timeless greats Switchfoot and Avenged Sevenfold. That’s the guy charged with shepherding the next Mastodon classic. That’s him above left!

-ADF

Last week’s post of In This Moment covering Iron Maiden sparked such an uproar that it inspired longtime MetalSucks Maniac Hegy to send in a link of another female artist covering a (sort of classic) metal track, Rage Against the Machine’s “Guerilla Radio” as performed by everyone’s favorite Canadian yodeler Alanis Morissette. Thing is, said cover isn’t nearly as objectionable as it might seem. For one, Alanis has actually got a good voice, and I liked a lot of her earlier material in a completely non-ironic (haha, get it?) way. But more importantly, Alanis doesn’t go for the straight cover. Her version of the RATM classic is musically quite different from the original — it’s more of an “interpretation” than a cover, if you will — and unless you’re a devoted student of RATM lyrics you probably wouldn’t recognize the song until the chorus kicks in at around the 1-minute mark. Alanis, you continue to prove why Canadians are that much smarter than their American brethren.

-VN