Mastodon film documenting the “Emperor Of Sand”album is released with 30 minutes of never seen before footage

Mastodon have launched an expanded version of their “Emperor of Sand” documentary online.  “Emperor of Sand” found Mastodon achieving their most careful balance yet between thunderous motorcycle-metal and knotted prog rock, and the Atlanta boys were rewarded with Grammy nominations for Best Rock Album and Best Metal Performance last week. Earlier this year, the band released 12 separate video clips showing the making-of their seventh studio album. Now all 12 parts have been joined together along with an additional 30 minutes of footage that has never been seen before.

As expected, there’s lots of great footage of the group being incredible at their instruments, (drummer Brann Dailor is still definitely a many-armed cyborg of some kind) as well as breakdowns of their creative process behind bringing the record heavy themes to life. While the documentary deals with the album’s metaphor for being diagnosed with cancer and coming to terms with mortality, much of it also consists of the band heartwarmingly praising each other’s work (“When Troy plays the bass…now it’s Mastodon,” “Bill was on fire for this record”). Dailor’s platitude of “we riff out, and it helps” sums up the overall message, and it’s one we can agree with

The band explain: “This is a deep look into the making of the album and the inspiration behind the music. With the Grammy nominations “Emperor Of Sand” has received, we thought it was the perfect time to release it. We hope you enjoy the documentary. If you do, feel free to share it! Thanks to Jimmy Hubbard helping us put this together.”

The full 75-minute documentary can be watched below. Mastodon are currently on tour across the UK and have several live dates remaining.