The Mountain by Heartless Bastards
LABEL: Fat Possum

This is the best album I’ve heard this year.

The name of it is relevant: Mountain. When the first sounds reach your ear, it’s like you’re walking along, looking at your shoes, kicking pebbles. All that’s coming out is the casual strum of an electric guitar—nothing wild, just a few simple bars. And then it explodes. The band kicks in hard, and a mountain of sound erupts in front of your feet. It’s booming and rocking, a full, complete sound, like hundreds of instruments were pounding out a tune—the sound of a happy future for grunge and rock ‘n’ roll. This is the lead off number, “Mountain,” the title track that sets an impressive tone for a remarkable album. It’s a song drawing from several grunge influences, creating a new and unique sound that’s heavy and heartfelt at the same time. It’s beauty lies in its multi layered, dynamic quality.

After the lead off track, singer Erika Wennestrom makes the album move. The pipes on her are impressive. She’s got a Billie Holliday, blues wail, but deeper and, yes, sorry for all you historians out there, better. She can command her voice like an instrument, bending notes, and dropping real low, quivering at times, steady at other times, and occasionally shooting chills down the neck and back and arms. She’s good, real good. Solo, her acoustic guitar looks bigger than her. It is. She’s tiny. It’s magnificent to watch her stretch her arms up and around the fret board and body like a small child, while such a powerful sound emits from her pipes. She’s got that sad folksy feeling, but, still, powerful, almost omnipotent, like she were yodeling chants off the peak of Olympus. It’s a real rock and roll voice.

What’s also impressive with the album is the rhythm guitar. It’s nothing too complex, but it’s good in it’s simplicity. It’s raunchy: real rough, like a drawled-out version of Keith Richards picking. It’s got the grit and the raunch of that stones punch, but it’s more folky and lazy. It’s quite similar to a Brian Jonestown drone, the mystery of Pink Floyd combined with that gritty Stones drive.

You can listen to this album all the way through with only a hold up or two. “Wide Awake” seven tracks down the album, we could do without. Wennerstrom’s voice doesn’t bode well with the faster tempos. It really works best with the more folked out tunes. But there are some greats on the album: “Hold Your Head High” is a slowed down, soul felt number about making poor decisions, but still knowing everything’s good. “Could Be So Happy” is a great one too. Really, most of the album is great.

 The Heartless Bastards should be excited about the release of this album. We all should be excited that grunge—rock and roll even—has a new sound brewing.

REVIEWED BY SAM HOUGHTON
knocksfromtheunderground.com


Listen to the title track: