Operation review all albums I bought in 2008 is moving full steam ahead. This one came out in January. Since it's now December, this review seems a bit late. But something should be said about this band and this band.
Specifically: Fuck Black Mountain. Or fuck Stephan McBean. Or fuck their fans. I don't know. I'm being overly harsh, but something about this album kind of pissed me off.
I'm not entirely sure why I hate this album. Black Mountain's debut album was one of my most beloved albums at the time of its release. And I had really enjoyed the first Pink Mountaintops album (another band from lead singer/songwriter/guitarist Stephen McBean). A part of my backlash is the idiocy of having 2 bands for one songwriter. The Pink Mountaintops appear to be just McBean and whoever he can bring along for the ride while Black Mountain seems to have a set lineup with distinct roles for each band member. BUT IT'S STILL THE SAME GODDAMN SONGWRITER FOR BOTH BANDS. HIS SONGS ARE NOT THAT DIFFERENT. Sorry...got a little excited there.
But it's not just the multiple band names that have soured me on Black Mountain. Although I think that does play a major roles in revealing the weaknesses of both projects. While the Pink Mountaintops are unfocused and unpolished, they are also energetic and less predictable than Black Mountain which may benefit from tighter musicianship but can be completely lifeless.
And lifeless is the word that I'd use to describe too much of the music on this album. It opens with enough promise. "Stormy High" is a solid rocker even if repeating the title of the song over and over seems like a pretty weak refrain. And "Angels" is a nice mellow classic rock tune. But then things start to go wrong, and they just get worse as the album progresses. "Tyrants" attempts to be some sort of 70s prog-rock epic, but the final jam feels totally forced and empty. Singer Amber Webber does her best to howl some life into the tune, but it just never comes.
Things seemed to pick up with "Wucan", but that song is still a just a less interesting "Druganaut" which wasn't even my favorite track to begin with. And with "Queens Will Pay", the album delivers another totally lifeless (that's the theme for this review) attempt at a rock epic. The song sounds alright for most of it's duration. The problem is that at the end when they're supposed to be rocking out, it really doesn't feel like it's picked up very much. The climax is a giant let down.
But if you take 9 of the album's 10 songs, I'd still say maybe 4 out of the 9 are keepers. And the track I'm leaving out is 16 minutes long. So it were a keeper, then Black Mountain would be doing pretty well in my book. Well it's not. In fact, the song in question, "Bright Lights" is probably one of the low moments of the album. Which is sad since each of it's sections could have held some promise, but taken as a whole, the song is just a prog-rock mess. It opens with acoustic guitar and moaning vocals from McBean and Webber. I like nonsense lyrics just fine, but they don't work so well when the vocals are put right at the front of the mix. After a few minutes of this nonsense, the rest of the band joins in with a briskly paced stoner groove. This all sounds pleasant enough, but it doesn't really go anywhere until the song fades to pleasant white noise around the 8 minute mark. That gives way to a slow sludgy bass groove that eventually gets joined by electric guitar. Eventuaally, the song reaches its inevitable climax and it's all over.
When I saw Black Mountain late last year before this album was released, they closed with this song. McBean said they had one last "short" song. I guess he thought he was being cute. The whole time I was listening, I kept wondering when it would end. I wish it had been a short song. None of the individual sections are bad, but they never work together coherently, and the middle part just feels like a waste. The other time I saw this group live, McBean was wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt. After listening to this album, that feels like some kind of joke. His musical influences don't like with the Grateful Dead or any other band famous for jamming. Despite it's long length, there's really no jamming on "Bright Lights" or any of his other tracks. Maybe some noodling, but none of his songs are written to provide room for improvisation and unpredictability.
Black Mountain is a prog-rock band. Maybe that isn't a bad thing, but I've never had a taste for the stuff, and I don't see much fun in reviving the music of the poorest regarded rock music of the 70s. I'm done with these guys.
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