Record Review: Black Mountain - In The Future

Rating: 7.4 / 10.0

Somewhere along the way, good old fashioned rock and roll got sort of lost in the shuffle. More and more bands these days seem to fashion themselves after Sonic Youth than after Led Zeppelin. The lead guitarist is oft supplanted by the ubiquitous keyboard player. Too many rhythm sections are composed of a bass player and a drum machine. The days of Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page are eras that we look back on fondly, but have come to accept as gone. Now, I know I say that like it's some kind of a bad thing, but I don't think it necessarily is. Music has regained its footing after two and a half disastrous decades which began in the 1980s. But rock and roll seems to be a style of the past. Very few bands (with the notable exception of any band of which Jack White is a member) write songs around a bitchin' guitar riff anymore.

Enter Stephen McBean and Black Mountain. First things first; let's be clear: I’m no sensationalist. I’m not saying Black Mountain is the new Led Zeppelin. Pound for pound, they don’t compare at all. But the Zeppelin influence is obvious on their sophomore album, In the Future. It’s a rock and roll record that can serve to remind us what we miss – or at least ought to miss – about those “days gone by”. It's a record that aims to capture stomping, rollicking, unapologetically kickass sound...with varying degrees of success. Single "Angels" is the clear standout on this record: sparse percussion, pristinely distorted guitars, and 60s-inspired keyboards, it is a sublime, Zeppelin-Pixies hybrid. McBean couples loose, almost simplistic song craft with airtight arrangements and musical sensibility.

Elsewhere, however, McBean et. al. do not fare so well. Slow jam “Stay Free”, with its Hammond B3 underpinning, sounds a little trite, and falls flat. The guitar riff in the chorus here departs from the proud tradition of Jimmy Page, and sounds more like the spawn of 80s glam rock (it’s like Motley Crüe). But “Queens Will Pay” is a return to form, with ominous palm mutes and wavering vocals, with the elsewhere misplaced Hammond and lead guitar tactfully, tastefully, perfectly placed in the arrangement.

In fact, “Queens Will Pay” is representative of everything that makes this record such a worthwhile listen – it’s unabashedly badass, it’s fun, it’s rock and roll music. The record only falls flat when it tries to incorporate the very calculative style it purports to shirk (as on "Stay Free"). The only missteps here happen when the band loses its focus and forgets what this record is about. Such instances are rare enough that the record as a whole is very listenable. But it's not Zeppelin.


-PTC