As 2008 comes to a close, I’m still going back to my notebooks and finding the reviews that never made it to the Web. Call it the 2008 Close Out collection of reviews.
With My Morning Jacket atmospherics, Black Mountain presents their second full-length, In the Future. They’ve got prog rock’s expansive wash and orchestrated narrative turns.
Watch how on “Tyrants” Black Mountain takes you through a whole spectrum of sounds. There’s the Rush-like intro followed by a fuzz keyboard and funeral dirge drum. They don’t leave you there, but instead offer up a 60’s psychedelic pick me up. Right on its heels, there’s some soulful 70’s rock with a dose of Heart. Add an AC/DC bridge then a Bon Iver/Neil Young closing verse.
“Angels” comes on with a bluesy flair. “Wucan” has a Southern Rock mystique with a psychedelic mysteriousness. “Stay Free” pairs the falsetto of Bon Iver with some Led Zeppelin acoustic guitar. Then it sounds like Gene Krupa kicks off “Evil Ways” with “Sing, Sing, Sing” drums that land into a freeform, soul, jazz hard rock. “Wild Wind” begins with a “Sunday Bloody Sunday”-like drums—a bit slowed down—as an intro which goes into a Pink Floyd-type ballad. Finally, the 16 minute 40 second tribal meditation of “Bright Lights” seems like a folkified song from Husker Du’s Zen Arcade mantra collection.
