Black Mountain - In The Future

Filed under: Eric Saeger, Music Reviews   

Eric Saeger

Indie pseudo-stoner bands are forever treating your average suburban Zep/Sabbath/GNR listener the way Lucy treats Charlie Brown, pulling the football away just when the potential record buyer is about to take the plunge. There are enough attention-starved critics around who’ll listen to In the Future and feel compelled to snark long and hard about the super-creativity of its Pavement-meets-early-Foghat-ness, and the beat will go on without anyone gaining anything, as in listeners getting a worthwhile album and/or Black Mountain beating the pants off of Wolfmother.

The first two songs are rope-ins comprising the music-product equivalent of a mind-blowing trailer for a woefully written popcorn blockbuster action flick: the psychedelitrippy “Angels” is like Darker My Love on Zoloft; “Stormy High” opens with a hint of the “Hells Bells” intro before straddling a riff that could have come from Blue Oyster Cult’s first album and riding off into the sunset with lofty mellotron tones and Stephen McBean’s dully versatile alt-rock singing along for the ride. Then comes the changeup, “Tyrants,” a badly done, sleep-inducing attempt to fit Brian Jonestown, old Floyd and Dinosaur Jr (who, despite their embarrassing posturing these days, have this idea down much better) into the same round hole. Many, many bands are doing this lately, serving chicken fettuccini at the chop suey joint, but I suppose it’s their money, which, thankfully, isn’t bubbling up from bottomless pits.

Posted on February 10th, 2008.

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