Mastodon | Emperor of Sand | Story Explained 

Troy sanders is an amazing writer. Absolute genius, this and blood mountain are some of my favourite albums.

Very underrated album IMO

Love this album so much. Losing both my parents to cancer this album thematically hits me so hard yet it's such a great listen and for its deep themes can be a ton of fun just as a musically casual listen as well

I'd have a lot of it differently, but it's always nice to see other people's interpretations of the story. And it's nicer to see EoS getting some love. I think this album is more usually than not unjustifiably bashed by listeners. I have it in high regard. CtS is my #1, with H&G coming close at second, but EoS is always in a fist fight with Leviathan to take the bronze medal for me. Deep, emotional, filled with great harmonies and hooks, can't go wrong with that.

Precious stones is one of my favourite mastodon songs. Love Brent’s ozzy osbourne style screeching verses Any chance of a mastodon album ranking video in the future??

Jaguar god is one of my all time favs man: at least I thought. Until Hushed And Grim, That album slaps. Just like EoS, it came out at the right time for me and became so, so special.

Thank you for the breakdown! What a great concept album. Musically it is top-notch but I had no idea that this album had a story to it like their old ones. After Crack The Skye came out I read somewhere that Brann had announced that he would no longer write concept albums because he didn't want that extra pressure of having to write one cohesive story, and ever since then I would just listen to the albums without even checking if any of them were concepts or not. I'll have to listen to the album in one go while reading the lyrics to see how I end up interpreting the songs. Thank you for doing all the work you do!

I also find that any time I decide to listen to Emperor of Sand I end up listening to it on repeat for about a week. The concept is amazing, and the album just takes you on such a sonic journey.

I cant beleive I took so long to find these. Amazing work. Thanks for this. Easiest sub of my life.

This is their Jewel in the Rough for me in Mastodon's discography. It was so great to hear you break it down. You have a new subscriber

Awesome explaination. Love the Ne Obliviscaris album in the back too!

Oddly enough, as my grandmother was going through cancer, i watched a documentary miniseries called "Cancer: The Empreror of All Maladies". Lyrics from Jaguar God ("...throne of maladies...") and the album title had me wondering if someone watched it and drew some inspiration from that phrasing

i absolutely love these videos.

Omg. Precious stones and sand…I can’t believe I didn’t make that connection. 🤦‍♂️

Jaguar God is absolute peak

One of my fave albums of theirs, love the break down.

Punk Rock MBA sent me over here. Great video and subbed!

I would absolutely love a breakdown of Access All Worlds by iotunn. Such an amazing album!

They have said In multiple interviews that the rain was real and caused a flood that killed him.

My Two Favorite Albums off from Mastodon is Crack the Skye and Emperor of Sand They are Fucking amazing 🤘

Another concept album about cancer is The Incurable Tragedy by Into Eternity. Check it out! I became a fan of Stu (the singer) when he was with Iced Earth, but this was before that time (and apparently he has now rejoined Into Eternity after Iced Earth's...death probably...).

Based on your interpretations of Mastadon's albums (of which I agree) methinks someone in that band are a fan of Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun novels. If you are not familiar I cannot recommend them more.

Who do the crystal beings represent? I was thinking that the indigenous tribes were homeopathic practitioners and the crystal beings were the doctors but that was flipped on it’s head with the quote about radiation

Help the lady out and leave a like.

Why do think their videos don’t follow the concept through?

What? This album had a story? Hahaha. Cool.