Black Mountain
(Jagjaguwar)
Monstrous riffs, molten sludge, the bludgeoning weight of guitar overload-those have always been Stephen McBean's stock in trade, and never more so than on third Black Mountain full-length Wilderness Heart. Yet where most of Black Mountain's 1960s forebears were all-male affairs, this band has Amber Wells to shake up the stereotype. Just listen to how her warm, vibrato-laced contralto casts a witchy spell over the title track, making its head-thudding guitars, its rampaging drums into something wilder, sweeter and altogether more unpredictable. "Old Fangs," too, has the palm-muted, ‘vette-on-blocks stomp of classic Sabbath, yet synths and Wells' singing brings its old-style menace into the modern era.
As always, some of the most arresting moments are the quiet ones: the loose, hazy harmonies of "Radiant Hearts," the Neil Young-worthy shamble of "Buried by the Blues." Yet fundamentally, what's interesting about Wilderness Heart is the way it melds he-man classic rock with the rich country self-assured-ness of the band's distaff side. Maybe we can all get along, after all.
DOWNLOAD: "Wilderness Heart," "Buried By the Blues" JENNIFER KELLY
