First the bad news: As you’ve probably ascertained from the headline, even though Mastodon had gone into the studio to record music for the forthcoming Pixar movie Monsters University, it turns out that there won’t be any new music from the band in the film or on the soundtrack after all. On the plus side, you’ll still be able to hear the band in the film if you take your kids/nieces/nephews, enjoy Pixar animation and want to witness it on the big screen, or are a pedophile. The band’s “Island,” from 2004’s Leviathan, will be featured in the film. Here’s where it fits in, according to a press release about the soundtrack:
Faced with the question of what a sweet monster might listen to during a free moment, filmmakers decided to push the envelope. “There is a great moment in ‘Monsters University’ when we thought it would be funny if the tunes were some of the most intense heavy metal imaginable. Mastodon was the obvious choice. They show off an unexpected monstrous side for one of our great new characters.” They chose an existing song from the group called “Island.”
“Island” isn’t on the film’s soundtrack either, but that’s because it would probably be pretty jarring to hear the song, one of Mastodon’s heaviest, amidst all the Randy Newman (the film and soundtrack also feature a song from Axwell and Sebastian Ingrosso of Swedish House Mafia. It’s a bummer that we don’t have a new song to look forward to from the band, it’s still pretty exciting and somewhat subversive that a song from Leviathan is featured in a Disney film.
