In The Future

Today's Music That Makes Jason Wish He Had Drugs is In The Future, by Black Mountain. This is a group that I know next to nothing about, just that their album cover is a cube design and is pretty cool. I picked up this CD at the library, and it was a great find.

In The Future has a definite classic rock vibe to it, a very 70's sound. Before you tune this out and go looking for some more Zeppelin or whatever, well, you should give Black Mountain a shot. These aren't radio-friendly songs; they sound more like the dark side of Zeppelin and not far from the Waters-era Pink Floyd songs, maybe like a less dorky cousin to Rush or even Yes. These are sprawling, diabolical songs that you can rock out to and not feel stupid about liking. There's a fair amount of screaming and some wicked guitar.

I suppose I am a little partial to this kind of sound, having listened to far too much classic rock radio in my youth and even in my later teen years. But I'd like to compare Black Mountain to another recent group that sounds very much like it was spawned in the same era, Wolfmother. While Wolfmother is okay, I guess, they sound more like they were content to make pop songs with a Zeppelin foundation, whereas Black Mountain wanted to delve all the way to the core of Zeppelin and their peers rather than just taking the sweet and easy layers off the top. The result is that I think Black Mountain would musically tear Wolfmother a new one. I'm not completely anti-Wolfmother, I just think they seem to have taken the same concept as Black Mountain to a cuter and less challenging place.

In short, Black Mountain may not be for you. But they happen to be pretty rockin'. If you like a good classic hard rock sound, not just handed to you, but built up around you until you can't breathe, well, then kiss your air goodbye. I'll be curious to see what Black Mountain does in the future; let us hope it does not become doo-wop or something equally saccharine.

In Other News:
Enough indoor time today, I am going outside.