Customer Reviews

Black Mountain

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This album is simply amazing. A masterpiece. Mark my word, Kevin Hill says this is a masterpiece. I had the chance to see this band live and they will blow your mind. And the members are the most down to earth, sweetest people you could ever meet. I think some of these reviewers haven't even listened to the whole record. They're judging it by the first song, which granted, does sound all velvety strokey kings of leony whatever. BUT the rest is pure 14k Gold. Amber Webber has the voice of an Angel and Stephen McBean soon will be hailed as the great songwriter he deserves to be credited as. Who are these people who write about records on here? Old bitter people who have to sit around and nit pick the artist's influences from their generation and sit around and gripe meanwhile their ears miss the magic that THIS album contains which is NEW music. new REAL music. THere are only so many notes people. Black Mt. WILL be huge. And it couldnt happen to a more worthy band. This cd is great from start to finish, as is Pink Mountaintops, Stephen McBean's other cd. Amber sings on it too. A swell bunch of lads from canada who once they play a bit more round the states WILL have their ah-thor-a-tie! recognized. It is inevitable. But whats cool is I met these folks and shopped cds and vinyl with them and they are genuine down to earth people NOT "hipsters" as the "press" is calling them. They are young music lovers just like you are or you wouldn'yt be reading this. They just so happen to be musically inclined (maybe you are too!) Do Not hesitate, buy this record and Pink Mountaintops and most importantly see them live!!! Come back to Oklahoma soon Black Mountain! Dont forget us when youre on the cover of rolling stone. This album is like Black Sabbath meets Neil Young (ala Buffalo Springfield) dash of hendrix and floyd (especially live) (for all you nit pickers lol) These guys and gal are REAL artists. Not put together by a marketing team. Straight from the hills of Canada where they been smokin and playin some old vinyl in between rehearsal time. Thanks for encouraging me to by that Blue Cheer cd y'all! (They talked me in to buying Blue Cheer "outsideinside" which is a great record btw) buy that one too! check out my cd list under "unobtrusivetones".

The best way I can describe this music is that you don't listen to it, but rather, you experience it. It meanders along, exploring a variety of musical avenues, from uptempto jazzy-sounding numbers like "modern music" to quiet, introspective, and powerful tracks like "set us free", but all the tracks wrap themselves around your head and invade your psyche like you never realized music could.

It's sort of like listening to [Gasp!] Dark Side of the Moon [though of course I'm not saying they're necessarily musically the same], in that no matter how long the songs are, the entire album captivates you for it's entire duration, and after the last note has played, and the album gracefully ends, you feel like you've really experienced something, something that you don't experience often in music nowadays. You could say that you sort of have to be in the right mood to enjoy music like this, but the results can be pretty spectacular. So, well, I recommend this album to anyone looking for some challenging and intricate music, though sometimes the 6 1/2 minute song lengths aren't completely necessary, it's still a powerful and awesome achievement. 4 stars.

I was expecting a so-so album of stoner grooves, wailing vocals, and intermittent folk, given the 30-second samples. The fragmentary nature of the songs when heard in bits resolves itself into a return to the album-oriented format of the 70s, when you might pick up a "rock" album to find a rich variety of styles from cut to cut, yet a sequencing that unfolded logically to build a momentum that rose and fell throughout the 40 minutes.

Black Mountain has done this. I don't hear the Sabbath tones others have. It reminds me rather of the eclectic hard rock of the 1970s. While the opening tracks reminded me of Beefheart and Pere Ubu, the album settles into more Crazy Horse territory for much of the length. Neu!, Buffalo Springfield, and the Byrds surface, and early Pink Floyd can be heard later on; the mix of these disparate influences makes for a lovely, unsettling, and restless ambiance. The female vocals appeal far more than the only serviceable male vocals (of the bandleader, of course), however, and this limits the range that this album could have more fully reached. Heart of Snow best shows the harmonious side of the ensemble, and Druganaut their more swaggering manner.

The album works as a succession of moods, and the intelligent if not quite exciting experimentation finds a suitably retro-ish production to match. A problem might be that this is an ensemble more than a fully-fledged band, and the album suffers a bit from a narrower vision of its leader. I believe that if Black Mountain continues, that they will surpass this promising first effort with an amazing follow-up, one or two albums down the line. All of the influences are well-chosen, and the band should integrate them further into their own Northwest blend smoothly.

while everyone is busy debating and worrying over what other bands black mountain sounds like and who they were influenced by, i'm going to quietly steal them and keep them for myself. then it will just be black mountain and me.

A friend of mine told me there are a slew of interesting new bands and has been spoonfeeding them to me.

Black Mountain is one. I got this and found a nice mix of hard rock, some textural experiments, and fine male female vocal pairings. Basically, this is a good rock and roll album, done by one of the few who know how such albums should sound

I've been reading some of the reviews and am surprised at how much some people are rippin' on these guys. I'd heard a buzz about them for awhile but never got a chance to listen to them till recently when a friend loaned me the CD.

At first, I just put it in as background music to listen to while I was working. But the next thing I knew, I wasn't able to concentrate on a bloody thing because I was too busy listening! Realize that I do much of my work on my home computer and always have music playing while I do, and rarely--as in, very rarely--does anything distract me from that work. But this album kept hooking me and drawing me in, until finally I just gave up, set the work aside, sat back and let the music do its thing.

I agree with what a lot of the reviewers have said here. Yes, the female vocalist is superb and probably deserves to be featured more prominently. Yes, some of the songs are probably a bit longer than they need to be. Yes, they sound like bits and pieces of other bands.

But even so, this is one of the freshest albums I've heard in awhile, if for no other reason than that they are clearly trying to make something fresh--and that's not an adjective you can use with many bands this group. Each song is different than the one before it, and by the later parts of the album, they sound almost like a completely different band than the one playing the opening tracks.

And for that, I think they deserve a lot of credit.

So, torn between giving them a 4 or 5 stars, I finally went with the 5, mainly for the reason that their effort deserves my vote. To quote another reviewer, these guys are destined to become something great. For the sake of rock, let's hope they do.

this is the best record i have heard in years. black mountain is as groundbreaking as music from big pink, raw power or white light white heat.
i keep hearing people talk about the record being sabbath influenced. really, i don't see it at all unless occasional guitar distortion equates sabbath. this band reminds me much more of neil young (after the goldrush), velvet underground, later period blue cheer (i'm the light) and country joe and the fish (electric music for mind and body).
every song on the record is excellent. my two year old daughter also likes it and is learning to count by listening to modern music.

hopefully black mountain will come to northern new england soon.

Black Mountain's self titled first album shows a strong example of what the band can become, but it doesn't show much on this album. Songs like "Don't Run Our Hearts Around" show the band's Black Sabbath blues side but the other songs drone on with a Pink Floyd feel (not putting down Floyd, just the way Black Mountain did the songs)

In my opinion, their second album "In The Future" shows many more influences and it reflects in their music.

Upon my first listen, I thought the James Gang had come full circle. Black Mountain has a bit more scope though, combining Wilco's alt-country feel, southern blues rock, swirly dream-pop, all glossed over with raspy/soulful vocals. The sound is raw, trippy, and experimental, fusing both roots rock with neo-psychadelia, just think The Band meeting The Flaming Lips. What's interesting is that Black Mountain always seem to straddle (even blur the lines between) bouncy/jamming riffs and an area falling somewhere in between spacerock and Krautrock. Lately it seems like music from past decades are converging, and with Black Mountain, the 70's are represented quite well.

I asked an aquaintance who is in the music industry for a recommendation and he said "Black Mountain". Taking his advice was a good move. Two seconds into the first song "Modern Music" I was on my feet turning it up and staying on them so I could dance. The song transitions through a catchy chorus, and ends with a 70's rock bass line. Intentional or not you can hear hints of Velvet Underground, Black Sabbath, and even Rare Earth in the song "Druganaut". If you like rock and roll this cd is for you. Turn it up, way up.