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Black Mountain - Bright Lights

"Bright Lights" is the conspicuous beast on Black Mountain's new album, In the Future. It's the only track that clocks in over ten minutes, though I suspect a number of the songs on this album may have began in a similarly lengthy form. I get the feeling the band's testing here to see how much they can get away with. The thing is, though, for its sixteen minutes, it's actually one of the more interesting and engaging tracks on the album.

Taken as a whole, In the Future is a bit intimidating on first listen, and decidedly. . . . Well, let's just put it this way: there's nothing remotely resembling "Druganaut" here.

Black Mountain have birthed an unpop behemoth, and as someone who loved the pop sensibility of their first album, I'm kind of torn. I've listened through In the Future three times now, and there are still moments that I find deeply unsatisfying. Like the boring, squiggly synth mush shoved into the middle of "Wucan", or the ridiculous last two minutes of "Tyrants". Really, what is that?

But there are insanely great moments on this album that make bearing the occasional stretches of lethargy and overreaching worthwhile: that sweet organ that comes in around 2:20 on "Angels", McBean and Webber trading off on the vocals, and later shrieking (!) on "Bright Lights", or really all of "Stormy High" and "Stay Free". Amber Webber gives the album a beautiful coda in "Night Walks" as well.

While I don't know if I'll ever like this album as much as their last one, it nevertheless receives my wholehearted recommendation.

www.myspace.com/blackmountain

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Another album coming out on Jagjaguwar in the upcoming weeks is Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago, and I have been enjoying this track from the album for awhile now:

Bon Iver - Skinny Love