Rock Reviews

The Mountain

Review

One of the newer bands coming out of my hometown of Cincinnati, the Heartless Bastards 3rd album was quite a detour from there previous two "All the Time" and "Stairs and Elevators" but in a very good way. Already owning the title of best band name ever, this rock band is also host to an unusual mix of instruments in The Mountain (steel guitar!) and also a very unusual but excellent voice in Erika Wennerstrom.

Unfortunately the main problem with this album is not just the flow, but also the quality in songs throughout the album. While it stars fantastically well with the self titled song "The Mountain" and continues with a somewhat of a hard rocker in #3 "Early in the Morning", a nice bassy "Hold your Head High" and another nice rocker with that steel guitar in "Out at Sea". If the album ended there or continued with that same very high quality the rating of this album would be very high.

However sandwiched inbetween those songs is a slow song (see what I said about bad flow?) and after that string of songs is a solid "Nothing Seems the Same", the worst song on the album "Wide Awake" (rated just a 3.2), "So Quiet" a solid quiet song (nice vocals), another mediocre one in "Had to Go" but finishes well with "Witchy Poo" and a fantastic ending in "Sway".

While the flow is not that good, I do want to talk about the good, because there's a lot of it. First off, listen to Wennerstrom and if you like her you'll be okay with this album - her voice is the type that some will be turned off by it, in turn like any album to me, if you don't like the voice your not going to really like the album.

The guitar also sounds good on this one, often keeping the rythm but nothing too fancy. The bass has some more noticeable times, one in particular is "Hold your Head High" where it's very apparent and works quite well. Drumming is also impressive here, while not the best I've heard there are times in songs, most noteably a bit on "The Mountain", but especially on Early in the Morning, Out at Sea and Sway. It has some of that "go crazy" style that I love when I hear, quite rarely with today's drummers.

Overall the album is worth at least a try, if not a buy. I won't argue that the whole album is great, it's not. But there is definitely enough great tracks on here to check out and those will get many listens.

8.3

Songs