It was late. We were in the car and, hoping to find a fresh
pair of ears, I cranked up the new Black Mountain CD, In the
Future. Immediately a voice barked from the back seat, “What is
this?” And not because it wanted to know. Quickly I skipped to
one of the more upbeat tracks.
“This sounds really sterile,” said the other. “It’s like they’re
playing standing still.” He didn’t know how right he was.
“It’s a shame,” I said. “Their first album wasn’t like this. It’s
phenomenal.”
That the two passengers shared my sour feelings for In the
Future afforded me little solace. There was a time I saw Black
Mountain as torchbearers of soulful, gritty, classic folk and
rock—a necessary band to fight the drift toward the
laptop-toting, knob-twisting digital wash. Unfortunately, they’re no
longer that band. But it wasn’t the release of In the Future that did it. Things went to hell in November.
Black Mountain was playing the Doug Fir, and I couldn’t wait. They’d
get out there and blow the roof off the place—just go crazy.
Improvise. Play loud, fast, and livid as hell—show everyone what
rock ‘n’ roll is. Testify.
But that wasn’t what happened. And that’s when things began to
unravel. All of a sudden that “stoner-rock” label—the one I’d
protested—seemed like a snug fit. At the show, songs were
carbon-copied from the albums. The tempos didn’t stretch, and the
energy didn’t pulse. The group performed mostly still, almost
lackadaisically. But the strangest part was that the band, on numerous
occasions, declared Portland the best stop of their tour (in all
fairness, they got a good response from the crowd). I asked keyboard
player Jeremy Schmidt about the comment.
“We wouldn’t have said it if we weren’t feeling it,” he explained.
“We’re not entertainers. We don’t say that every night.”
I asked Schmidt how this Saturday’s show would be different, seeing
as the band is touring on basically the same set, playing the same
venue. “Gigs just really differ, just on the energy within the band, or
within the audience,” he explained.
And in the same way energy can shift for shows, it can for albums.
Black Mountain’s self-titled debut was recorded in a rather ragtag
fashion. The lineup wasn’t set. Parts were done here and there, and
there wasn’t much of a budget. But since 2005, when Black
Mountain came out, a lot of things changed. The lineup is constant,
resulting in more contributions from members other than
guitarist/singer/songwriter Stephen McBean. Vocalist Amber Webber is
getting a lot more time out front. And possibly because much of In
the Future was recorded at the same studio, now the sound is
polished in high gloss.
Though a few of the album’s tracks are built around solid, catchy
riffs, most of In the Future is a big, clunky mess. In place of
loving, carefree, Stones- and Velvets-inspired tracks like “No
Satisfaction,” or
the Zeppelin-esque “Druganaut” (from 2005’s
self-titled debut), rest lengthy monstrosities like “Tyrants” and
“Bright Lights”; gloomy, meandering bores that rarely build or flow so
much as cobble together disparate parts as congruent movements.
Unfortunately, the dense fog above In the Future rarely lifts.
It feels like a war album, but this time there isn’t much hope.