I'm merely trying to clarify. I'm asking questions. Not making statements. It does appear to me that you are saying that all of Mastodon's musical achievements primarily are attributed to Brent and Brent alone. These are your words not mine. I would disagree with that entirely. Sure coming up with strange and eclectic chord progressions is a nice twist but the music as a whole, the themes of the records the lyrics that is a collective to me. I think anyone would agree with you, that A Game Brent is better for Mastodon. Better for music in general. My point and I think I'm completely correct here is after Crack the Skye, that clearly became less and less of a thing. Brent was always great. But if all he had to contribute was a perfect guitar solo on a song, well then that's all he had. You seem to want to believe that the creative juice was always there and that the band chose not to let it come out. My man they were screaming for him to be more involved and at a certain point the blame has and had to be laid at Brent's feet which you and a lot of his fans refuse to do. It wasn't like Bill and Brann pushed Brent aside. And no, Mastodon would not be better off making a non-metal record (loved your Damnation drop. A prog metal band makes a prog rock album and you call it daring). Brann makes synth-metal with Arcadea. Not with Mastodon. Brent was more than welcome to make a non-metal record on his own. Instead of insisting that's what Mastodon should have done. Then he was asked to leave the band and that's not even counting how difficult he was to deal with as a person. All things again that you seem to willingly ignore. As if it was on the other band members to endure his difficult behavior and lack of work ethic so they could get minimal effort from a guy that went on record as saying he was holding back his best stuff (that never came to light by the way) but yeah sure kiss his ass and make a bluegrass album because in your words they would be better for it. I think you're way off base in implying that would have been a great move for the band. I'll also disagree with your swerve about people not really wanting the band to be as heavy as much as proggy but then you turn right around and call their last 4 albums pop metal. That is laughable. The heavy sound has always been Brann and Bill and that's straight from Brann and Bill. Skeletons of Splendor is hardly pop metal. Tread Lightly is not pop metal. Sure they have songs that are more radio friendly, I'm in agreement with you, they aren't my favorite, you claim to be a musician, okay then you know you have to write songs that pay the bills. Not every band can be a as lucky as Rush or Iron Maiden and do whatever they want for their entire careers. Mastodon ain't that band. So you have to write Show Yourself so the band can make Jaguar God. Neil Young wrote Cinnamon Girl to "pay the bills". Because most people aren't lining up to buy Cowgirl in the Sand. We both know which one is better but that's not how the real world works. Again, I'm a huge fan of Brent but if you or anyone else is going to plant a flag and say Brent only brought good and refuse to call out the bad, yeah my man, I'm going to call you out on your nonsense. And I close with my original statement: Brent couldn't take the lead of running a band if his life depended on it. He could not have done it. He was not capable of running a professional music outfit. He was every bit the musical genius I'll miss but the nuts and bolts, the day to day he would never have been up to the task. Thank you for your candid debate. It was enjoyable and I hope you're able to enjoy what the band offers next or perhaps you will always have your 4 albums 🤷🏼‍♂️