black mountainMaybe the sound was just bad that night in Festsaal Kreuzberg (24th November 2007), or I was too close to the speaker, whatever, Black Mountain are anyway, quite a musically complex band. Using various instrumentation combinations to create varied textures and ambiences, Black Mountain also have knack of using mood controlling rhythm changes and contrasts between fragility and stark power. I particularly like the drums and riff combination on the start of Tyrants, the 16 minute epic, slow build, heavy riffed, slightly psychedelic Bright Lights, and the stuff the keyboard player does. The synth sounds, I guess, from his Memotronic, have lovely presence, quite acoustic in timbre at times. His organ playing on Evil Ways has an almost Charlatans feel to it, cool, the Charlatans are ok, but I really like Rob Collins. In my previous review I had mentioned that the female singer/percussionist had a unique singing style, using a kind of “warbling”, which was cool, but in the show after a while got a bit tiresome. In the CD however, she uses it a little bit less and in the mix it comes across very nice, almost operatic. She does, however, have a nice straight singing voice, as displayed in Queens Will Play.
So, still, I have the same opinion of them, they’re good, interesting musicians that create quite varied and well put together guitar based music. I think from now listening to In The Future I want to see them live again, but maybe a better sound system and I’ll back off a bit from the speakers ::
Black Mountain/In The Future – Jagjaguwar/Cargo.
