For many indie fans, Classic Rock was that beast that your older brother listened to, the format of radio stations that pummeled “Rock & Roll” and “Sweet Home Alabama” into your skull until you resented the very thought of the songs. Was Classic Rock not the bloated genre of eight-minute guitar solos and pretentious arrangements that punk came to destroy? However, once you strip away the baggage and the worst tendencies, it’s pretty undeniable that Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, et al have made some incredible music.
That brings us to Black Mountain, whose music uses 70s-era Rock & Roll (the good kind!) as its starting point to make an album quite apart from the current indie music landscape. Created by five musicians who are members of the Black Mountain Army, an arts collective from Vancouver, Canada that seeks to “takes us all back into the primordial mountain, where our hearts can be made steady and our minds can be set free.” Now if that doesn’t sound like some weird-ass hippy shit, I suppose you may already be in the BM platoon. However, it is elucidating that Black Mountain’s stated aims are to move forward by looking back.
The core of the album revolves around a sound that is parts heavy blues-rock riff churning (“Druganaut”) and poppy but frenetic sing-alongs (“Modern Music,” “No Satisfaction”). At times, the guitars revel in the slow, deep heaviness of Black Sabbath, such as “Don’t Run Our Hearts Around.” These moments reveal the band as being able to produce genuinely exhilarating head-nodding rocking-ness. Despite this prowess with the righteous riff, Black Mountain isn’t content to sleep only in the “stoner rock” bed. The chugging, propulsive bass rhythm and synth-like trilling of “No Hits” is reminiscent of Can, while “Modern Music” is sloppy and charming in the way Mudhoney was at its best.
Lead vocalist Stephen McBean (also of the Pink Mountaintops and Jerk With A Bomb) sings with a relaxed, bluesy, nearly-Southern drawl that quite fits the album’s laid-back vibe, though it can be a bit monotonous when he uses it in flattened-tone repetition. It is Amber Webber’s backing vocals, however, that makes the band’s sound stand apart the most from its Classic Rock brethren. Her voice, like a heartier Chan Marshall (Cat Power), is emotional and pretty without sounding at all “girly.” “Heart of Snow,” with Webber on lead vocals, is the album’s best song. Nearly eight minutes, it alternates between strumming acoustic guitar and anthemic fuzz-guitar crescendos, as Webber’s wavering voice starts mournful before ending with the commanding refrain of “Lay down your guitar.”
The album has many peaks, but can be plodding at times. Though there are only eight songs on the album, five of them clock in at over six minutes. Combined with the general slow tempo of the songs, it can drag on a bit, or give the impression of being better enjoyed while buzzed. In contrast to the spazz-psych mayhem of Comets on Fire, another band with an appreciation for the thick riff, Black Mountain takes its time getting to where it’s going, which I suppose is important when you’re trying to steady hearts and not jumpstart them. Still, it is refreshing to hear an album that so astutely incorporates the strong suits of 60s and 70s Rock & Roll while never falling into imitation. “Black Mountain” is a bold and assured first step for yet another promising new band from above the border. |