Black Mountain
In The Future
Jagjaguwar
By: Rinjo Njori

In the last half a dozen years, Canada has specialized in churning out music collective super groups. The New Pornographers gave way to Broken Social Scene, which gave way to the Arcade Fire. Lurking in the background was Vancouver's metallic psych-rock collective led by Stephen McBean (Jerk With a Bomb, Pink Mountaintops) and fully supported by Amber Webber (Lightening Dust) Matt Camirand (Blood Meridian), Jeremy Schmidt, and Joshua Wells (Blood Meridian, Lightening Dust). These musicians come together as the Black Mountain Army or Black Mountain for short. Three years ago they released a powerful and engaging eponymous full-length debut which fell more on the side of folk psych. At the time, most of the indie blogsphere was incorrectly referring to it as the best new Hardcore album of 2005, which might have hurt their chances for musical domination.

For In the Future, McBean and company have taken a decidedly heavy approach. Black Mountain ably mix equal parts Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd with a hint of 70s metal while marrying it with the modern retro sounds of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Beck, the Mars Volta and Dead Meadow. "Stormy High" opens the album with a thunderous riff accompanied by Webber's siren like wail. The real highlight is the bridge where the guitars sit side by side with the organ. "Tyrants" can best be described as a stripped down, coherent and shortened Mars Volta song. With eight minutes Black Mountain shows what they are all about. Taking it down a notch from "Stormy High" at the beginning and painfully building on every note. McBean and Webber trade vocals before it all comes crashing down with heavy, well timed riffs that suddenly stop and take you back to the beginning of the song.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the epic "Bright Lights" ably duels with the excess, the nonsensical directions and long winded instrumentation that the Mars Volta has honed over their eight year career. However, as the rest of this album illustrates Black Mountain is not trying to be the Mars Volta. If anything they are showing us the boys from Texas aren't the only band that can capture our attention for ten plus minutes. This isn't a marathon like the Mars Volta's "Cassandra Gemini," but it's every bit as hypnotic and doesn't have you constantly checking to see if this is the same track or (if you haven't lost track) when it will be over.

"Angels," with its slow and well-paced tempo, shows the side of Black Mountain that made their debut album so completely different (at the time). The band emotes introspection without becoming frail or delicate. Webber and McBean singing the verse together is executed perfectly, accompanied by a short string interlude which helps the song reach epic proportions while keeping the playing time relatively short. On "Queens Will Play," Webber gets her first shot on the album to sink or swim all by herself. Her vocals have always reminded me of Ann Wilson, Grace Slick, and Betsy Palmer (Sacred Miracle Cave). Every step of the way had me wondering why Lightening Dust couldn't be this haunting, well paced and engaging. Then again Lightening Dust is merely parts of Black Mountain.

"Wucan," "Evil Ways" and "Wild Wind" really shake things up in that these songs feel like a little bit of relief after the whirlwind "Stormy High," "Tyrants" and the epic "Bright Lights." "Wucan" takes 70s rock in the vein of ELO and uses some low key, droning no wave dance punk to guide the song along. The heavy delivery on "Evil Ways" melds mid 70s Black Sabbath while repurposing and reconfiguring Santana's most memorable lyrics. The first two songs have a beginning, middle and end, but feel more like well placed interludes than actual songs. It's wise to recognize that every song need not be an epic song. In contrast, "Wild Wind" is much shorter in length than "Wucan," and "Evil Ways" faithfully captures the feeling of some of those late-Beatles songs.

Breaking out the tambourine on "Stay Free," Black Mountain does their best impression of My Morning Jacket, minus feedback and aiming high for the hippie quotient. The song is the first hint of just "good" instead of great. If "Wucan" feels like an interlude, then "Stay Free" feels like a song-- the only song out of place on In the Future. They might have been aiming for "Wild Wind" but definitely fell short. Similarly out of place is the closer "Night Walks." Relying solely on Webber's vocals and organ feedback, this mood music merely ends the album. Had In The Future faded out with "Bright Lights," it might have been better for the album, but it doesn't seriously hurt it either.

With In the Future, Black Mountain have built on their reputation for putting out engaging metallic psych-rock that is both haunting and inspirational. McBean and Webber might be the "stars" of the band, but without Camirand, Schmidt and Wells they wouldn't be the same. This genre of rock music might not appeal to the masses, but as their eponymous debut proved there are plenty of people out there to convert to the cause. Like the New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene, and Arcade Fire have proven over the half dozen years-- Canadian supergroups rock. Hopefully the title of this album prophesizes the same sort of success for Black Mountain. Lucky for us the future is now.

Labels: Black Mountain