MASTODON Partners With TOTAL IMMERSION To Create Augmented Reality Experience For 'The Hunter'

"The Hunter", the new album from Atlanta progressive metallers MASTODON, will be released in several configurations that feature an exciting interactive 3D experience known as Augmented Reality. The technology, created by Los Angeles-based company Total Immersion, combines virtual and real worlds to create a 3D one-of-a-kind interactive experience that users can control. Just by using a camera on a computer, their own face and the cover art on "The Hunter", the user can turn themselves into "The Hunter" sculpture that is pictured on the cover.

Though the track "Black Tongue" from "The Hunter" has already made its presence known, "Curl Of The Burl" will be the first official single from the album and will be digitally released worldwide on August 16 through all digital music retailers. A video for the track will be filmed in the near future.

The physical configurations for "The Hunter", which will be released by Reprise Records on September 27, are as follows:

* Standard CD: Includes the album's 13 tracks, plus a basic Augmented Reality Experience in which the users head becomes the "creature" on the album's front cover in full 3D.

* Deluxe Physical CD/DVD: Sold as a 13-song digipack with an alternative cover, this package includes the standard CD, with the basic Augmented Reality Experience, plus a DVD that includes a track-by-track, psychedelic visualizer, the "Deathbound" and "Black Tongue" videos.

* Direct-To-Fan Package: This exclusive package will be comprised of the complete 13-song digipack album. Additionally, buyers will receive two digital bonus tracks on day of release (more on that soon). An exclusive insert will be included which triggers an enhanced Augmented Reality Experience and contains additional embedded content (again, more on the subject to be revealed shortly). Also included is a 20" x 30" lenticular poster of the standard album cover artwork.

"The Hunter" track listing:

01. Black Tongue
02. Curl Of The Burl
03. Blasteroid
04. Stargasm
05. Octopus Has No Friends
06. All The Heavy Lifting
07. The Hunter
08. Dry Bone Valley
09. Thickening
10. Creature Lives
11. Spectrelight
12. Bedazzled Fingernails
13. The Sparrow
14. The Ruiner (limited-edition bonus track)
15. Deathbound (limited-edition bonus track)

"Curl Of The Burl" will make its online debut on August 6.

The follow-up to 2009's "Crack The Skye" will be MASTODON's third studio CD to be made available on Reprise Records in the U.S. and Canada and the band's first to be issued through Roadrunner Records outside of North America.

The visual companion to the song "Black Tongue", featuring contemporary American folk artist A.J. Fosik, creator of "The Hunter" cover art piece, can be seen below.

When asked about the sound of MASTODON's forthcoming album, drummer Brann Dailor told the German edition of Metal Hammer magazine, "When you listen to the songs, they don't sound as 'fun' as we perceive them to be, I guess; it's still pretty extremely heavy material." He added, "We had a few songs that were kind of, not left over from 'Crack The Skye', but just stuff that we wanted to be on that album, but that album kind of took on a whole different thing of its own and there were a few stragglers that were super-heavy and crazy that didn't make it, and we finally got to put them on this record. And then we wrote a whole bunch of brand new stuff. There's, like, 14 songs that we recorded. And it's sort all over the place a lot of different sounds. Some straight-up classic-rock-sounding songs, straight-up death metal-sounding songs and some completely bizarre, weirdo rock songs that we're not really sure what they are, but we love them."

"The Hunter" was recorded at Doppler Studios in Atlanta with producer Mike Elizondo. Drum tracks were previously completed in Los Angeles at the legendary Sound City Studios where NIRVANA's masterwork "Nevermind" was recorded.