Metal Mountains are a Brooklyn-based threesome and their latest album is Golden Trees (Amish). It runs 35 minutes, which makes sense because it was designed to be a vinyl LP (and you can get it as a download too). The shorter length translates to heightened focus. Every minute counts.
This is a band with a definite sound that I happen to like much. PG Six plays the 12-string guitar in a manner that recalls the Byrds and McGuinn from their middle period (just before Crosby left). Samara Lubelski's violin playing reminds a little of John Cale at certain junctures with the Velvets and Nico. Vocalist Helen Rush reminds one of various spacey soft-voiced chanteuses, doesn't really matter who. So Metal Mountains remind, but only in the sense that their musical roots go back to some of this. They do not "sound" like the Byrds, the Velvet Underground, or any manner of other groups. The mood is moody partly because the music has a slowness about it, real or implied. The songs have a kind of implied drone, a soundscaped quietude, a folk-picking-slowly and repeatedly-in-space kind of sound. OK there's something Lynchian-Baldamentian about them too.
Again, those are the roots. The tree? It's fully leaved for spring and it isn't like the surrounding trees in the orchard out there. It's one to sit under for a while and enjoy its shading canopy.
The songs have something to them, the vocals ensorcel, the instrumentality is just where it needs to be.
This is it. It's the RIGHT one, Mr. Beckett. Seek and find.
nice review
ReplyDeleteThank you duck!
ReplyDeleteGrego