Crack the Skye is the fourth studio album by American heavy metal band Mastodon, released on March 24, 2009, through Reprise, Sire and Relapse Records. It is the band's first studio album to feature drummer Brann Dailor as Mastodon's third lead vocalist. Dailor wrote most of the lyrics for the album, while guitarist Brent Hinds wrote most of the music. It is a concept album with a narrative that mixes science fiction with Tsarist Russian history, rooted in band members' personal struggles. These include the death of Dailor's sister Skye, who the album is named after, as well as Hinds' recovery from a brain hemorrhage he sustained from a fight after the 2007 MTV VMAs. The album debuted at number 11 on the Billboard 200, selling 41,000 copies in its first week. In Australia, the album debuted at number 19. It had sold 200,000 copies in the US as of September 2010, making it one of their highest-selling albums to date. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_t...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)