10 Canadian bands are up for the 2008 Polaris Prize - the best Canadian album in the past year (based purely on artistic merit). I'm going to try feature a post of each band...its the least I can do for my Torontonian wife. Know what I mean, eh? Next up is Vancouver band Black Mountain and their album, In The Future.
The new album also demonstrates a compelling evolution. Black Mountain's first self-titled album was like being in sixth grade, when there's a few new kids in class who you know you're supposed to hang with. You're out of the gates, but you still stumble and shake when the teachers yell at you. "In The Future", ninth grade and summer vacation are over. You're heading back to high school to hang in the hallways with those same kids who now have wispy and dirty moustaches, long hair and breasts. The teachers don't scare you. The jocks are boring, and your record collection is more important than the prettiest girl at school. It's the first real taste of independence in the quest for absolute freedom.
To say the album is ambitious is an understatement. Just listening to the seventeen minute epic "Bright Lights" with all of its movements and parts makes me totally see this band in a different....well...light. It is not all about opus tracks though, the straight ahead rock of "Stormy High" is a riffalicious.
Overall, a psych rock album worth giving a listen...peep some tracks on the band's myspace page here.
Previous Polaris Short List Nominees reviewed: