Customer Reviews

Mastodon: The Workhorse Chronicles

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3 star:		(3)
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MASTODON - The Workhorse Chronicles
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I've been excited about this release for months now... So of course, I picked it up on Tuesday when it was released.
First off it was only $13.99 (CDN) - Which is an awesome price for such a feature packed DVD.
The Disc itself is basically 3 parts, a) documentary, b) 28 live tracks and c) 3 music videos.

-The Documentary is great! The band, despite being a total bunch of goof balls, actually seem like really cool cats. They are sincere to the music and have definitely earned their right to be touring across the world. I really enjoy the fact that it isn't some crappy interview it is basically just the guys in the band being asked different questions about everything from their favorite Records to peeing in Gatoraide bottles. It also includes the pre-History of Mastodon... How they met, previous bands etc... (However they left out details about when Brann and Bill were in `Today is the Day')

-There are 28 live tracks recorded between, 2000 - 2005, taken from a variety of venues all over the world. Most of the visuals are quite good however the sound quality varies depending on the song. Either way 28 songs is tons of tunes it features all of the songs recently released on `Call of the Mastodon' plus the majority of the tracks on Remission and Leviathan. It is really nice to see how the band has gone from paying in front of only a few people to playing in front tens of thousands.
[I do wish there was more footage of just Brann playing the drums though... that man is freaking animal.]

-The 3 videos are a nice bonus touch. Their first vid was March of the Fire Ants, the second was Iron Tusk, and their third is Blood and Thunder (Which is a fantastic Video.... Crazy Clowns and Carnies everywhere!)

All in all this is highly recommended for anyone who either, loves the band, or has an interest in getting into one of the best Metal groups to come out this Millennium. Not to mention this is an incredible bang for your buck.

-4.75 Stars


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Mastodon unleash a career spanding DVD with tons of live clips, and the band's story. I don't really want to say this too loud, but this was better put together than Zao's Lesser lights of Heaven and Darkest Hour's Party scars and prison bars. If you play the "all" feature you get the band's story as told by members of the band, it isn't so much the story, but the fact that they deliver it in a very Human way, as they themselves are quite the characters, almost as serious as Pantera in the Pantera home videos. Just the fact these guys are very natural and chill makes the DVD so much more enjoyable to watch. The next part up in the All feaure is some live clips, this segment kinda reminded me of Converge's "the long road home" with clips from different years and places with better than Bleeding Through and Zao's sets on their dvd sound quality. They also explain various parts of the shows in between songs, like when Mastodon had a fifth member, a singer! The next part is 3 videos, one for March of the Fire Ants, Iron Tusk and Blood and thunder. They do little intro/explanations before each video and I was kinda dissapointed that MTV wouldn't play the Iron Tusk video, all cuz someone was swinging on meat hooks...? Overall, this is a really good dvd and great way too see the band, I actually have more resepct for them after seeing this, I'm giving this a 5.

In general there seems to be two kinds of music DVDs: the concert film and the behind-the-scenes documentary, and the former is almost without exception the superior format. This one tries to be a little of both, which has been done before to great effect (the recent Queens of the Stone Age live DVD comes to mind), but here they don't really pull it off.

The behind-the-scenes stuff was worth a watch, but I don't think I'll be returning to it anytime soon. There's a bit of band history, bits on bands they used to in, formation, all that crap. The guys in Mastodon are actually pretty compelling individuals, and genuinely funny in conversation (as opposed to the forced wackiness I've seen in many worse band documentaries), but even still the film focuses too much on tour bus shenanigans, which as always amounts to a bunch of "you-had-to-be-there" moments for every laugh. But the biggest problem with this portion of the DVD is that there's no real thrust once we get past the history lesson. It kind of devolves into guys goofing off on camera. As I said before, they're likable guys, but the filmmakers never get close enough to them. We learn plenty of superficial stuff, like what everyone's first record was, and who collects action figures, but nothing deeper than what you'd find in a MySpace profile.

However, that stuff is, or should have been, peripheral to the meat of the DVD, which is the music. It's nice to have the 3 videos, but with a delay this also could have included the "Seabeast" video, and it's a bit disappointing to know that this DVD isn't a totally complete document of the Leviathan era. But what really bummed me out is the sound quality in the live performances. I went through all of them, and only 3 or 4 are actually soundboard recordings. The rest are seemingly recorded with a microphone in the crowd. I understand why they wanted to include early videos of them performing, crappy sound and all, but how can they not have good, clean, soundboard-quality recordings for songs they've been playing on tour in the past year when they've been preparing a DVD?

There's a wealth of live material here, almost every song they've recorded (in fact it may actually be every Mastodon song for all I know, I haven't checked), but much of it is rendered a mere curiosity by the dodgy sound quality. If they had simply included one full, soundboard-quality set in all its full bodied glory, I wouldn't complain if the other, dumpy-sounding videos were there to round out the collection. They shouldn't be the main attraction.

As it is, I'll watch the live stuff again, because they're an impressive and fun live band, but I'll still resent it for the wasted potential.

MASTODON - The Workhorse Chronicles
-
I've been excited about this release for months now... So of course, I picked it up on Tuesday when it was released.
First off it was only $13.99 (CDN) - Which is an awesome price for such a feature packed DVD.
The Disc itself is basically 3 parts, a) documentary, b) 28 live tracks and c) 3 music videos.

-The Documentary is great... The band, despite being a total bunch of goof balls, actually seem like really cool cats. They are sincere to the music and have definitely earned their right to be touring across the world. I really enjoy the fact that it isn't some crappy interview it is basically just the guys in the band being asked different questions about everything from their favorite Records to peeing in Gatoraide bottles. It also includes the pre-History of Mastodon... How they met, previous bands etc... (However they left out details about when Brann and Bill were in `Today is the Day')

-There are 28 live tracks recorded between, 2000 - 2005, taken from a variety of venues all over the world. Most of the visuals are quite good however the sound quality varies depending on the song. Either way 28 songs is tons of tunes it features all of the songs recently released on `Call of the Mastodon' plus the majority of the tracks on Remission and Leviathan. It is really nice to see how the band has gone from paying in front of only a few people to playing in front tens of thousands.
[I do wish there was more footage of just Brann playing the drums though... that man is freaking animal.]

-The 3 videos are a nice bonus touch. Their first vid was March of the Fire Ants, the second was Iron Tusk, and their third is Blood and Thunder (Which is a fantastic Video.... Crazy Clowns and Carnies everywhere!)

All in all this is highly recommended for anyone who either, loves the band, or has an interest in getting into one of the best Metal groups to come out this Millennium. Not to mention this is an incredible bang for your buck.

-4.75 Stars


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Let me start off by saying to totally appreciate this DVD it helps to see Mastodon live first. This DVD shows the bands that the guys played in before Mastodon and also how Mastodon got started. Some of the live clips on this DVD are from very early on from when they played very small clubs as a 5-piece with former singer Eric Saner. My only problem with this DVD is that the quality on some of the songs is less then great, for instance during the song Trainwreck the guy filming is fooling around with the visual effects on the camera, and the filming of Aqua Dementia (my favorite live song from Mastodon) is from really far away and the is just sloppy in general. All in all this is a very good DVD with few flaws, and if I were you I would definitely buy this right now. This DVD helped me remember how truly great these guys were when I saw them live. I've been beating myself up over missing them on the Unholy Alliance. If you still have the chance to go I suggest you get to TicketMaster and buy yourself a few tickets. It'll be a good show.

Dude this is about as raw as it gets. The live shows look like they were shot with hand helds. The sound is rough on most of the tracks, because the production values are pretty low. It just wasn't very professionaly filmed, but that's about what you would expect from a band that hadn't quite broken through yet: bootleg quality recording. This is before their big breakthrough on Blood Mountain, and that really is why I can't give this five stars.

Just so you know, there isn't any material from Blood Mountain or Crack the Skye here. This is all stuff from Call of The Mastodon, Remission, and Leviathan. Thus the professional treatment a big named band would get on a live release is sadly lacking.

The bonus features really aren't anything special. We get some behind the scenes with the guys that give us a little insight into their personas and band history, but that's it. There aren't really any hard hitting questions, and we don't get to see the guys jamming in the studio. I personally feel that the bonus DVD forBlood Mountain (W/Dvd) was better than the bonus features on this DVD.

Overall, though this is a worthy addition to the Mastodon fan's library; however, casual fans would be better suited purchasing Live At The Aragon (CD+DVD). The production values are much higher, and the sound quality is top notch on that recording.

This was exactly what I was looking for, it shows the band in interviews and when they are just hanging out on the tour bus, and then u get great live shows my favorite probably being Mother Puncher or Blood and Thunder. If you are a fan of or are just trying to get into Mastodon's old stuff this DVD is great! Mastodon is awesome live so check the Workhorse Chronicles out you won't regret it.

I love Mastodon's stuff, but would have liked a single live set, too

This is the most complete set of Mastodon footage to date. I really love this band. Their music is hard rock progressive. Lots of change-ups with jazz school drumming. These guys are several tokes over the line. The lead singer is silly. I was dissappointed that they left the video for 'Seabeast' out. It is my favorite song by them to date. They have 'Seabeast' live, but the sound quality is lacking. This is the reason why I'm only giving this DVD 4 stars. As for Mastodon, they are a 5 star band all the way. Check them out.

First I gotta say, preordered this DVD without having a clue as to what the contents were, I?m a huge Mastodon fan, I have all of their realeases and I?ve been lucky enough to see them live 2 times.
What I was hoping for when I bought this DVD was some good, powerful, live stuff from this beast of a band. That is not what you get!! I know how good they are live, and I really wanted to be able to watch that sitting at home, beer in hand anytime I felt like it. In good video & audio quality. But no - The only live footage this dvd contains are misc recordings caught on a home-video camera by some members of the audience or friends of the band. Really poorly sounding and very poorly filmed. Like a cheap bootleg. This I was really disappointed with. I was really hoping for a powerful, well produced, kick in the face live performance like the Killadelphia dvd (LOG) or some of the new metal videos. So if you want that, this is not your video... sadly. I sure do hope they realease another dvd soon with a full length concert, in mindblowing sound and professionally shot video, with one of their many excellent performances. Which they are well capable of!!
On the other hand, the 1 hour or so documentary of the band, from their early days up to present times was really interesting. It?s a sort of "behind the music" sort of thing. Interviews with band members, them goofing around with the camera and talking about how Mastodon came to be, their influences and so on.....
So I give it 3 stars. 2 for the documentary, 1 for the live stuff.