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Black Mountain tap into the bedrock
of '70s U.K. metal

Black Mountain - Wilderness Heart
(Jagjaguwar / Outside Music)
3 1/2 stars (out of 5 stars)
Reviewed: Dec. 3rd, 2010
Black Mountain

Review by Tony Bonyata

Hard rock fans rejoice! There's a band you may not be aware of that is currently laying down some of the heaviest slabs of English rock since the mid-'70s and their name is Black Mountain. On their third full-length album, Wilderness Heart, the Vancouver, BC quintet specialize in the weighty, riff-laden crunch that bands such as Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy and Led Zeppelin built their careers on, while also adding in a touch of psychedelia for groovy (yes, groovy) measure.

The album kicks off with a modern Southern-rock type of swagger on the opening fiddle-laced, foot-stomper "The Hair Song," before the track "Old Fangs" pays homage to early Anglo prog-rock with its chugging guitar-riff, eerie Jon Lord-inspired organ, snaky vocals and clobbering time changes. While Black Mountain certainly share an affinity with the aforementioned '70s hard rock bands, it's the sounds of Black Sabbath that are permanently stained into their sleeves on the plundering speed metal of "Let Spirits Ride."

In stark contrast to all the mayhem Black Mountain are capable of creating, they pull in the reigns considerably to deliver the gentler, day-glow, folk-rock of "Radiant Hearts," "The Space Of Your Mind" and the closing acoustic folk-turned-tribal dirge "Sadie." But, then again, these light sun-showers of English country-folk interspersed through thundering hard rock have always been omnipresent with their '70s influences - perhaps none more so than Sabbath and Zeppelin.

There's hardly anything really new here, yet somehow this Canadian band has updated the heavy sounds of early metal, psychedelia and prog rock with their own modern spin that may just find indie-hipsters and cool kids alike nodding in approval as they rifle through dadâ's old record collection to trace the bedrock of Black Mountain.


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