When does “true metal” (shouty, long-haired, perennially uncool) become “hipster metal” (still shouty and long-haired, but played on late-night XFM and name-checked in Vice magazine)?
It’s to do with the level of gruff ‘70s authenticity involved. Reference the slick, duelling guitars of ‘80s metal – as with the likes of Trivium and Bullet For My Valentine – and you’ll never get any props outside Kerrang! magazine. Channel the primal heft of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, however, and you’re suddenly “the metal band it’s OK to like,” lauded everywhere from The Guardian to Idolator.com.
It’s a strategy that’s ensured plenty of against-the-grain critical plaudits for Queens Of The Stone Age and Mastodon. The same thing could happen to Vancouver bruisers Black Mountain, whose second album In The Future allies old-school, patchouli-scented riffage with epic stretches of prog-inspired noodling . You can practically feel frontman Stephen McBean’s salt-and-pepper beard bristling through the speakers.
Tyrants is typical of the band’s heady, psychedelic approach, kicking off with a denim-and-leather depth-charge of a riff, before taking a scenic detour into pastoral folk, then building back up to a stop-start, Whole Lotta Love-style guitar solo at 5.10.
In The Future is out 21 January. Tyrants is being hosted by music blog Quick Before It Melts. Or you can listen on [Myspace].
11:56 AM | 07/01/2008
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