Black Mountain: Wilderness Heart (Jagjaguwar, 9/14/2010)

Black Mountain: "Wilderness Heart"

Thanks to endless comparisons to bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath, and tagged as a band obsessed with '70s stoner rock, Vancouver-based rock outfit Black Mountain has a lot to live up to.  But beyond the umbrella terminology and exhaustive retro comparisons, the group doesn't receive enough credit for striking a modern chord with mainstream and underground-minded audiences alike.

Now the band is back with its third release, Wilderness Heart, doing what it does best: putting the signature Black Mountain stamp on the fundamentals of rock and roll.

Composed of drummer Josh Wells, keyboardist Jeremy Schmidt, bassist Matt Camirand, vocalist Amber Webber, and guitarist and lead vocalist Stephen McBean, Black Mountain wears its influences on its sleeve, but it's not as self-indulgent as it sounds. Though the band's more nostalgia-driven tunes have come to define its critical success, the overall sound is tastefully stripped down, forgoing crotch rock for a more intelligent sound.

Wilderness Heart is a big step for the band’s direction and sound.  The album is Black Mountain’s first effort with outside producers on board — David Sardy (Zombieland soundtrack) and Randall Dunn (Secret Chiefs 3) — moving it in an unexplored direction.

The result is a set of cleaner and more polished tunes.  Many of the psych- and progressive-rock arrangements are scaled back, and though the record has a slew of heavy hooks, the band's folk sensibilities are taken to a new level. McBean’s voice is as distinct and versatile as ever, capable of reverberating hope on folk ditties like “The Space of Your Mind,” but also able to capture menacing urgency on rockers like “Let Spirits Ride.”

On album opener "The Hair Song," McBean's bluesy vocals showcase a newfound relationship with Webber.  Though Webber has taken a larger vocal stance since the group's self-titled debut in 2005, this riff-raffing between the two is entirely new, giving the group a new folk-pop dimension.  But the song still hits hard; the acoustic and countrified electric-guitar licks may remind listeners of Led Zeppelin III, but it's the rhythm section that really carries the tune along.

Webber has proven herself a timeless rock vocalist on past records and recently with Wells on their more melodic and softer side project Lightning Dust. She owns the album’s title track, “Wilderness Heart,” and fans may hear a faint resemblance to two beloved Black Mountain tracks, “Stormy High” and “Don’t Run Our Hearts Around.”  Her wailing voice is a confident fit to the track’s deep rock foundation in all of its masterful turns and energetic breaks.

Schmidt's keyboards lend a more lush approach than on past records, rounding out rollicking riffs and more effectively holding together the acoustic intermissions.  Tracks like "Roller Coaster," with all of its archetypal metaphors and heavy guitar lines, work because of Schmidt's blues-inflected keys as well as the relationship between Camarind's chunky bass and Wells' epic drumming.

With Wilderness Heart, Black Mountain has shaken up its stoner-rock image, but it continues making thunderous rock music.  And whether it's for the heaviest to lightest of moods, the band produces consistent results.

ALARM leaves no genre unloved in our round-up of 50 albums that didn't receive enough attention in 2009.

Omar Rodriguez Lopez: Old Money (Stones Throw, 1/27/09)

Omar Rodriguez Lopez: "Family War Funding"

The first of many releases in 2009 from prolific guitarist/composer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. Accessible and centered on rock, sounding spacey, funky, progressive, psychedelic, a little jazzy, and a little Latin.

Kevin Hufnagel: Songs for the Disappeared (self-released, 2/3/09)

Kevin Hufnagel: "Tres"

Musical themes come and go, covering swaths of Spanish and Gypsy guitar before reverting back to haunting rock melodies, on this solo acoustic album from highly technical Dysrhythmia guitarist Kevin Hufnagel.

P.O.S: Never Better (Rhymesayers, 2/3/09)

P.O.S.: "Drumroll"

Likely the year's best hip-hop album, Never Better draws on Stefon Alexander’s background in punk and rock music (he plays most of the live instrumentation on the record), making this is an album that categorically defines the indie in indie rap.

Zu: Carboniferous (Ipecac, 2/17/09)

Zu: "Ostia"

Sludgy alt-metal with complex repeated rhythms and free-jazz freakouts. Features Mike Patton on two killer tracks.

The Andreas Kapsalis & Goran Ivanovic Guitar Duo: s/t (2/24/09)

The Andreas Kapsalis & Goran Ivanovic Guitar Duo: "Shadow Thief"

A Balkan-influenced classical guitarist joins an ethically inspired finger-tapping guitarist for a disc of skill and beauty.

16: Bridges to Burn (Relapse, 2/24/09)

16: "Throw in the Towel"

Dubbed the "Unsane of the West Coast" by ALARM's Jamie Ludwig, 16 issued another hard-hitting riff fest in 2009 with Bridges to Burn, the band's best album to date.

Umlaut: s/t (3/10/09)

Umlaut: "Kitty Puppy"

Mr. Bungle's Bär McKinnon, multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire, issued one hell of an album for this new project — one that filters meticulous melodies and asinine vocals through the lens of a whacked-out lounge group.

Jono El Grande: Neo Dada (Rune Grammofon, 3/16/09)

Jono El Grande: "Oslo Coty Suite"

Fanciful music that's different around every turn. Art rock that weaves through theatrical, progressive, classical, and absurdist styles with influences from Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, King Crimson and Igor Stravinsky.

Kylesa: Static Tensions (Prosthetic, 3/17/09)

Kylesa: "Scapegoat"

Down-tuned dirge metal that rumbles with crust punk, sludge, metal, hardcore, and psychedelia, often laced with atmospheric samples. To date, Static Tensions is Kylesa's most powerful album.

(MF) Doom: Born Like This (Lex, 3/23/09)

Doom: "Cellz"

Dropping his “MF” prefix, the incomparable rapper and Marvel-inspired supervillain delivered another nearly impenetrable wall of rhymes and flow, dizzying listeners with his ever-shifting, slowly delivered lyrics.

Built around the inspired turntablism of Kid Koala and Dynomite D, The Slew began as a psych-rock score for a documentary based on the influential but obscure work of the 1970s band of the same name.

Though the film never came to fruition, the two were heavily into the project and enlisted the aid of the ex-Wolfmother rhythm section to tour with six turntables and a full band. And if you weren't fortunate enough to catch the modern Slew as a touring outfit this October, fret not — the originally intended "live-only" project has succumbed to demands for a recorded album.

On 100%, circular blues-rock riffs are tweaked and spliced with tactical precision, firmly guiding the grooves, samples, and beats that accompany them. Fans of Kid Koala will recognize large chunks of 100% that appeared on his great 2006 effort, Your Mom's Favourite DJ. Nevertheless, there's plenty of goodness to go around, and fans of both DJ skills and old-school rock and roll will dig this.

Jaga Jazzist: One-Armed Bandit single (Ninja Tune)

Über-melodic chamber-rock ensemble Jaga Jazzist attains a remarkable combination of complexity and accessibility. Yet despite its success and appeal, the group has been devoid of releases for the latter half of this decade.

By the time that we see the release of the group's new album (also titled One-Armed Bandit — so confusing), it will have been five years between full-length albums. Thankfully, in the meantime, we can enjoy this outstanding single from the forthcoming album that was mixed in Chicago this year by Tortoise's John McEntire.

"One-Armed Bandit" is a frantic, scurrying piece that features a dueling harpsichord and horn, a 1970s rock lead, and a fuzz-bass foundation that shifts gears to a rhythmic breakdown and a dreamy electronica interlude. Elements of golden-age Frank Zappa and Norwegian countryman Jono El Grande are apparent, and this should foreshadow a great progressive album.

David Sardy: Zombieland soundtrack (Relativity Music Group)

A diverse producer and former member of quirky 1990s rock outfit Barkmarket, David Sardy has plied an additional craft as a film-score composer and contributor for the past dozen-plus years.

Tabbing Sardy to pen a soundtrack for Zombieland seems like a great fit, and the result is a dark, highly percussive score that oscillates between brooding minimalism, blood-curdling neo-classicalism, and horror-infused rock and roll.

Honorable mentions:

Erik Deutsch: Hush Money (Hammer & String)
Fin Fang Foom: Monomyth (Lovitt)
Sajjanu: Pechiku!! (Tzadik)
V/A: Daptone Gold (Daptone)