Black Mountain - 'In The Future'

It's often tough to tell whether the haze shrouding a Black Mountain song is from the smoky organ, the blazing guitar or the, er, liberal musicians themselves. Their self-titled 2005 record was basically somewhere between a campfire singalong and a gigantic tribute to early, blues-based Led Zep, with a constant grin on its face even during stompers like "Don't Run Our Hearts Around." As debuts go, it was pretty striking, and it conveyed a real love of the blues-rock of the early seventies.

Here, Stephen McBean and his motley company have moved further into riffs, organs and latter-day Bonham beats, that perpetually stoned metal of the late seventies. Check out that 7/4 groove on "Stormy High," man. What a way to kick off a record. It's four minutes of riff, build, riff, build, riff, build, with organs and histrionic vocals cresting atop monolith guitars, with a rigid military chant. God, you can feel the shag carpet and lava lamps, if you listen hard enough. It fits into that long-haired aesthetic so well that you couldn't pick that cover out of a lineup of Hipgnosis illustrations.

Sure, there are moments reminiscent of the first record, but there's something new with all of them. The string-and-synth embellishments on "Angels" lend it a prog-rock excess grandeur, but one that knows where to draw the line, one that knows that it's supposed to create majesty and not just show off how rich or cultured Black Mountain are, and it's balanced by spare, martial verses. "Stay Free" is a return to the occasional folk of the debut, I guess, especially referencing the "fire in the sky" from Druganaut; however, it's closer to bassist Matt Camirand's alt-country act Blood Mountain, with its slide guitar and slow-dance aesthetic.

But those moments bleed into wicked psychedelics and occult chords. Moments that would feel goofy on any other record just make you nod or bang your head a little more on this one. Songs are huge epics and quiet elegies simultaneously. Amber Webber's tortured alto sears across this record, leaving vast swathes darkened permanently. When they want to tower, they tower; "Tyrants," for example, or the absolutely unstoppable sixteen-minute "Bright Lights," easily the high point of the album by simply being so Goddamn determined to knock in your skull.

That sixteen-minute song, by the way? Its size and its juxtaposition with the 1:43 "Wild Wind" makes it probably the quickest way to point out that at this point Black Mountain hardly care about song structure, at least in the traditional sense. Where the last record was playful in tune and in tone, this record is mischievious in its approach to the layout of its songs. Hardly a chorus to be found here; instead, we've got verses that lead into different parts that lead into different verses. Coupled with the spacious self-production on the record, it sounds more like a deep-cave pagan ritual in a Hammer flick turned out to be a jam session.

It's not as cheesy as that sounds, though. It's a record of genuine pathos, genuine longing and genuine energy. Most importantly, though, it's an album in the truest sense of the word: a collection of songs oriented in a similar direction in order to pursue a single aural goal, the towering monolith sound of heavy rock that came before it.

And here's the crux of it. I checked the Wikipedia just to confirm Webber's last name, and I saw this:

"The band is closely influenced by many past artists, and criticisms often walk the line between praising adept imitation and blasting blatant re-use of old ideas."

The fuck? Yeah, you can hear a number of rock touchstones in their music, but come on. This record is a monolith, a giant that can stand up with Zep, Floyd, Young, Sabbath, even more underground psychedelic rock masters like Hawkwind. Black Mountain take all those sounds, put them into a blender, set the thing on high, take what comes out and then collectively they smoke the hell out of it. The result is something that's imbued through and through with the aesthetics of those bands but sounds unique and compelling, made with a passion for the creation of something new as well as an admiration for those bands that came before. The gorgeous closer "Night Walks" brings you out of that pagan ritual into warm sunlight and confirms this: In The Future is its own record. Don't underestimate it just because it has its idols.