Pitchfork

On Monday, Atlanta underground metal kingpins Mastodon revealed the cover to fourth album Crack the Skye via an email blast sent out to everyone on their mailing list, and holy shit this thing is awesome. While it might not quite equal the world-crushing majesty of the Leviathan cover, the Crack the Skye cover is still a great gift for those of us who love freaky bearded guys breathing light, levitating orbs, circular rainbows, and angry see-through bears. That's all of us, right?

The cover comes courtesy of artist Paul Romano, the guy who does every Mastodon album cover and other cold shit like R.A.M.B.O.'s Bring It! and the Red Chord's Clients. Point blank: If you aren't hiring either this guy or Pen & Pixel to design your cover art, you are playing yourself.

Romano also did the cover for Mastodon's "Divinations" single, which is pretty similar to Crack the Skye except with more bears and the weird beard guy is shooting eyebeams instead of breathing light.

Crack the Skye-- which I really hope was named in honor of Baltimore prog-rock cult heroes Crack the Sky-- doesn't have a release date, but it's due on Reprise sometime this spring. Springsteen boardsman Brendan O'Brien produced, and Neurosis frontman Scott Kelly guests on one song, the way he does on pretty much every Mastodon album. Mastodon and Neurosis will both headline Atlanta's insane (and free!) Scion Rock Fest on February 28, and this summer, Mastodon will tour Europe opening for Metallica . It felt awesome just to type that.