Mastodon Announces New Album Medium Rarities For September 2020 Release and Shares Unreleased Track “Fallen Torches” Featuring Scott Kelly of Neurosis

Heavy metal band Mastodon announced Friday that their upcoming compilation album, Medium Rarities, will be released Sept. 11 through Reprise Records. The group also released a previously unreleased song featuring Neurosis’s Scott Kelly, titled “Fallen Torches.”

“This classic Mastodon track was recorded in Atlanta in 2019, originally planned to be released in support of a European tour,” Rick Gherson of Reprise Records said in a press release. “The track was delayed so the band could focus on the release of Stairway to Nick John, a tribute to their late, long time manager Nick John, with proceeds going to the Hirshberg Foundation for Pacreatic Cancer Research in his honor.”

The album will include instrumental songs, live tracks, covers and B-sides that have never been released digitally. They cover include The Flaming Lips’ “A Spoonful Weighs a Ton,” Butthole Surfers’ “Atlanta” and Metallica’s “Orion.” Their soundtrack songs include “White Walker” from Game of Thrones and “Cut You Up with a Linoleum Knife” from Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Album pre-orders began Friday and included a download of “Fallen Torches.” It is accompanied by album-related merchandise on the band’s website, including shirts and a vinyl. The project precedes the group’s eighth studio album, which will be released in late 2021.

Mastodon formed in Atlanta in 2000 and have since released seven studio albums. The group members include vocalist Brann Dailor, guitarist and vocalist Brent Hinds, guitarist Bill Kelliher and bassist Troy Sanders. The original lead singer, Eric Saner, left the group in 2001. The group won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2018 for their song “Sultan’s Curse,” which is from their seventh studio album, Emperor of Sand. 

Kelliher said in May that the group has about 20 rough songs for their upcoming album and song for the film Bill and Ted Face the Music. Kelliher recently joined a group of artists to perform a cover of Rush’s “Anthem” for Two Minutes to Late Night. In February, Hinds hinted at a new project with Sleep’s Matt Pike.

Medium Rarities Tracklist

Photo Credit: Boston Lynn Schultz