Black Mountain at the High Noon Saloon
After an opening set of Tom Petty-tinged pop tunes from Nashville's David Vandervelde, Vancouver, BC’s Black Mountain wasted no time swinging a massive wrecking ball into the guts of its audience at the High Noon Saloon on Wednesday. The primal battering of drummer Joshua Wells and the sludgy bass runs from Matt Camirand built a stone bridge for guitarist-vocalist Stephen McBean’s fuzzy allusions to Tony Iommi to stomp on. Meanwhile, the blazed ethereality of vocalist Amber Webber and the twitching sonics of keyboard multi-tasker Jeremy Schmidt soared over the top.
The first half of the set was filled out with some of the band’s most concise tunes: the organ-fueled blast of Golden Earring-worshipping “Evil Ways” and minor-key Mellotron ballad “Angels.” Both tunes found the vocal deliveries of McBean and Webber at their most infectious, their melodic bittersweetness soaking into the rhythm section’s punchy backdrop like sugar in black coffee.
While Black Mountain took plenty of time to revisit 2008’s In The Future, the set included a handful of brand-new tunes from the band’s upcoming album Wilderness Heart (to be released Sept. 14). From the psychedelic march of “Old Fangs” to the almost Krautrock meanderings of “Radiant Hearts,” and the fist-pumping fireballs of “Let Spirits Ride,” it seems the new album may be a more concise effort than the previous.
The element that truly tugs Black Mountain out of vanilla classic-rock complacency is the wizardry of Schmidt, who colored in each tune with loads texture and melody via wobbling sci-fi synth, doomsayer organ, and pulsing bong-water gurgles. However, even Schmidt couldn’t rescue the audience from a nauseatingly jammy, 10-minute rendition of “Druganaut” that had us dozing off and checking our watches. (There’s nothing wrong with jamming, as long as plenty of dynamics are being explored.)
After the band ripped through proper set-closer “Don’t Run Our Hearts Around,” the crowd drunkenly howled for an encore. Of course, Black Mountain took the stage one last time and blasted out a few more numbers, including stoned sword-swingers “Stormy High” and “Queens Will Pay.”
Sure, Black Mountain signs a glorified love letter to ’70s rock and the surprises ran short by mid-set. But the band is damn good at what it does, no matter how many thousands of times it’s been done.
