Black Mountain!

[Davey]

I mentioned in that Kills thread that also picked up the Black Mountain debut that's been on my list for awhile now, and I'm really digging this one a lot. Kind of a mix of Led Zeppelin and Exile era Stones, meanig it's got kind of a dirty, bluesy sound, but some of that Zep art-rock boogie too. The singer's not in the same style (or class) as Jagger and Plant, but he's not bad. Gives it a sound not too different from the Masters of Reality. A little Gomez, maybe. Or Mountain, that's probably a good comparison. But they got a girl by the name of Amber Webber in the mix and she takes them into very interseting territory. Adds maybe a touch of Jefferson Airplane sound to it. Some of the song titles do seem to toy with their obvious influences. Like "No Satisfaction", which has kind of a foggy Velvet Underground meets the Stones foot tapping sing-a-long rhythm to it. And that's followed by one of my favorites in "Set Us Free" with some Buffalo Springfield sound, but mixed with a bit of that (for me at least) everpresent Zeppelin. Anyway, pretty cool CD. But one thing that I wanted to mention is that it's recorded and mastered pretty nicely for a modern rock release. Just on a tiny Indiana indie label named Jagjaguwar, and recorded at the Argyle Hotel and at the Hive by Colin Stewart and the band. Mastered by Doug Van Sloun. No idea who any of these people or places are, but I can tell you that it's got a refreshing sound to it. Not highly compressed and with some nice dynamics. Not perfect by any stretch, but the cymbals at least sound like shimmering metal, not like the splashes of white noise you hear on most modern CDs due to all the heavy compression. No boomy bass either. Sounds kind of like a vintage recording. Cool stuff :)

Hey Dusty, what do you think of the sound on this one? Be interested to hear what some of the others around here think of this. Lots of potential to be a Rave Recs hit I would think. Scores heavy points with the indie crowd, but still has a classic rock sound. Or at least a classic stoner rock sound. Even scored high points at Pitchfork. 2005. Vancouver band.

http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2005/01/1914.cfm

[Davey]

By the way, just thought I'd toss in a sceen shot showing the diff between a terrible but typical modern CD mastering like the latest from Nick Cave versus the nicely done Black Mountain that I was just mentioning. Was just checking the files in GoldWave because I wanted to prove to myself that what I had just said above was true, even though by now it's very obvious to me on most CDs after the first few notes which path they chose to follow :)

http://members.mailaka.net/davey/nick_vs_black_mountain.gif

[Dusty Chalk]

Hey Dusty, what do you think of the sound on this one? I have to admit to not having ears as perceptive as yours -- I didn't notice right away. I did notice, but only because I had to keep playing with the volume levels in the car.

I do enjoy the record a great deal.