The Hunter

The Hunter is the fifth studio album by the American metal band Mastodon. Released through Roadrunner Records on September 26, 2011 in the UK and one day later in the US via Reprise Records The Hunter is their first release with producer Mike Elizondo. In its first week of release in the UK, the album reached 19th position on the UK Albums Chart and position number 10 on the Billboard 200 chart. The Hunter has sold over 75,133 albums in the U.S. as of 2012

The Hunter is Mastodon’s second non-concept album; it is also their first album not related with a classical element. Moreover, the Hunter marks the first time that drummer Brann Dailor composes and sings a Mastodon song in its entirety (“Creature Lives”), and takes lead vocal duties on more than two songs. Like Mastodon’s previous album Crack the Skye, The Hunter features a mix of clean singing and a few songs with harsher shouting vocals. The song “Spectrelight” features Neurosis vocalist/guitarist Scott Kelly as a guest.

The Hunter has been met with highly positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received a score of 83, based on 29 reviews. The album achieved an overall rating of 7.8/10 at AnyDecentMusic? based on 21 reviews, making it the year’s highest-rated metal album among mainstream reviewers.