I don’t listen to a lot of rock music. Straight up grizzly riff type rock music that is. So when I say that Black Mountain is the best rock album I’ve heard since Queen Of The Stone Age’s debut you should take it with a pinch of salt. I quite like Opeth in smallish doses and still think Pearl Jams debut is a classic …Ohh and after being lent a copy of Ramsteins “Senschut” I’ve become a fan of them as well .Other than that I’m strictly a Led Zep Pink Floyd only type of guy. So not a great connoisseur then.
But I do know a good album when I hear one and can say unequivocally that Black Mountain is a very good album indeed. Stephen McBean -incidentally how un-rock is that name- has further explored his musical psyche on from other bands Pink Mountaintops and Jerk With A Bomb to produce a wildly adventurous reconfiguring of seventies rock with some other disparate styles thrown in for good measure. Listening to this music the obvious reference points are Led Zeppelin, early Black Sabbath, Cream, and Kings of Leon while some of the scuffed guitar riffs remind me of a band from the late 80,s called Loop while their ability to hit the core groove of a song recalls the Velvet Underground, Galaxie 500 or The Band of Susans.
This band has bit more going for them in terms of diversity though. There are the striking co-vocals of Amber Webber who is able to flesh out McBeans pleasant but limited drawl. It occasionally rambles on a bit in a slightly proggy way like on “Set Us free” or “No Hits” but never becomes tiresome or resorts to frippery or tedious repetition. “Don’t Run Our Hearts Around” is a tremendous blast of clarion call guitars, centred around a supremely bombastic riff that accelerates like a deep space ship engaging its warp engines. “Druganaut” subtly adds layers of detail till it becomes a rich cocktail of body shot guitars, elaborate drum fills and chunky reverse licks. “Heart of Snow” is a slower tempo, fabricated around an acoustic strum and a lovely Webber vocal till the focus shifts to some precise military style percussion and raspy passages of electronic guitar and treated keyboards. Opener “Modern Music” is the least representative track with a looser jazz feel what with it’s squalling saxophone like a rat pinned to a blackboard and some lithe all over the place drumming. It’s the albums least anachronistic song while “Faulty Times” recalls , horror of horror The Doors one of the most over rated bands to drizzle in music history , but thanks to it’s lack of that groups pomposity and it’s rather clumsy but sincere anti war lyrics it just about succeeds . It’s still way too long though.
It’s reverential as they come, facsimile style appropriating of old genres may annoy some but then one of
Britain’s biggest bands, Oasis, have made a lucrative career out of that. Don’t let that put any one off. This is a very good album, featuring music that is by turns thrilling, challenging and enjoyable …with a bit of frustrating thrown in for good measure. One things for sure though. I can’t imagine Stephen McBean making the same music several albums down the road.
