Here's the sub-headline: After the epic In the Future, Black Mountain return to earth with some newly-discovered restraint.
On third album Wilderness Heart, Stephen McBean's hippy stoners have struck a balance between the direct pop of 'No Satisfaction' found on debut Black Mountain, and the drone-y, riffing, indulgences of 'Bright Lights' from the aforementioned second album.
While McBean is the de facto leader of the band, all the while also helming the twisted country of Pink Mountaintops, this album sees keyboardist and man responsible for the awesome cover art ,Jeremy Schmidt, and vocalist Amber Wells stealing the limelight.
Ignoring such signs as recruiting producer Dave Sardy* (the man responsible for overseeing some of the darkest moments in pop history: Oasis, Chris Cornell, Dandy Warhols and Jet to name just four acts he's produced), and appearing on the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack alongside The Killers, Wolfmother and Jet (again!!!), Black Mountain have come up trumps with a mix of riffing and country-blues.
Kicking off with 'The Hair Song', you can tell immediately that there's a brevity and freshness to the Black Mountain sound, Amber Well's tremulous, world-weary vocals interplaying brilliantly with gravelly McBean's. 'Old Fangs' quickly follows showcasing Schmidt's keyboard work. There's plenty of organ and mellotron to be found on this record, calling to mind Benmont Tench's work on the vastly underrated Dust, the final album by Screaming Trees.
Although one can still find heavy-rockin' moments (witness the ridiculous Black Sabbath stylings of 'Let Spirits Ride', proving that Black Mountain have always maintained a sense of humour) the highlights here are the countrified, folky and bluesy moments of 'Radiant Hearts', 'Buried By The Blues' and album closer/highlight 'Sadie'.
What's also noticeable is how McBean's and Wells's voices are now dissolving into one another where they once stood in stark contrast to each other - now they seem to have worked out how to blend their respective talents into a cohesive whole.
What direction Black Mountain takes next is anyone's guess; it's unlikely that the band will fully investigate the more acoustic route due to the existence of Pink Mountaintops, but they've certainly realised that they don't need to bludgeon the listener with incessant riffing. This is a record that confidently swaggers and that, dear readers, is a good thing.
*To be fair to D. Sardy, he has also been involved with some fine moments from LCD Soundsystem, Spoon and White Denim, and here he shares production duties with Randall Dunn, the man behind Sunn O))) and their magisterial heaviosity.
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