Mt. Mountain

The good folks at Cardinal Fuzz and Little Cloud are sneaking a few more releases in here at the end of the year before 2018 collapses to a close. In the spirit of good things coming to those who wait, Perth’s Mt. Mountain offer up another drone-psych crusher with their third LP, Golden Rise. While their debut LP, Cosmos Terros was solid, the band truly came into their own on last year’s Dust, a record that paired their sparse menace with some impressive track lengths to great effect. While they don’t embrace the sidelong crusher as readily this time around, they bring the same sense of lysergic lilt and barren isolation, amping up the desert psych desperation and diving once more into the tectonic build of patient sonic destruction.

The patience is, perhaps, what sets Mt Mountain apart. They’re equipped with the tools to level a levee or two with gargantuan guitar fury, but they wisely let their unease simmer here instead. Many can light the wick and let the fuzz do all the work, but Mt. Mountain are working well with the texture of anticipation. On the previous effort that patience took place over the course of the titanic title track, but here the band are content to let the interplay between the ten tracks ebb, flow, and ease the listener into a meditative smolder.

On tracks, “Acceleration” and “Open Door” the band glows with an internal heat, steaming from every pore like a distance runner knelt down in the snow. They never let the heat hatch, though, keeping it coddled close to the heart and perennially pulsing. While the record never truly blossoms into the kind of maelstrom that listeners might be expecting, Golden Rise is far from boring. In fact, as that title might suggest, the record mirrors the slow euphoric slip into amber daylight that comes after a long night awake. Like fellow psych travelers Wooden Shjips have this year, they embrace the chaotic antidote and let the mellower side rule the day. I, for one, could use a good melt now and again.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.