Mind Mountain – S/T – Digital EP 2013

I’ve been fortunate enough to have seen Mind Mountain a couple of times, and I have always enjoyed their brand of heavy blues, jam out acid rock, for, well since I can remember. So, it is always at this point that I start to question, ‘how can a band like this possibly transfer to a recording?’ As so many bands have failed over the years of rock to do so, I was preparing for the let-down even before I had put on my headphones.

But, In this case it seems to come very easy for Mind Mountain to transfer their sound. Hitting off with the track ‘Void’, I feel like I have stumbled into the first track a few seconds after it has begun, but I am already hooked. I let the music wash over me as if I’m listening to it live. We are chasing the tail of this huge track and falling right into it. The use of subtle synth sounds and the chord changes feel like a long lost memory, like how I felt when I heard Deep Purple or Budgie for the first. This isn’t the true kind of memory though, but more the one you have constructed or maybe dreamt about. The track quickly rampages through its nine minutes and I am totally lost in its sound by the end of it.

And yet I am still falling, as I enter track two ‘Singularity’ it feels like a reprieve with its slowed down pace, but there is no place for slowing down here. You are held firmly in place on this trip. Fractured spaced out synth noise and LFO cut through the throb of the guitar and you are quickly launched into the next rampage. This is a none stop ride, it gallops along with some absolutely rocking chops and solid drumming. With breakdowns that feel effortless when they arrive and are a total surprise to me while I listen, as I can’t quite remember when they shifted down a gear. The word I will be using is stunning from this point, as they have encapsulated the essence of blues rock bands and made it new to me again.

It is at this point I am reminded I am listening to a recording with the third and final track ‘Dune’. It feels like its own entity apart from the other tracks, as we step into a whole other place with this song. This is more like the soundings of trumpets readying for war, like when I first heard Black Sabbath’s – ‘War Pigs’. Here the mood is slowed, but not repressed. We are allowed to relax, even though the overall tension is still high, and the build-up you hear a mile off. It is a joyous procession- it spirals slowly with some stunning Jon Lord, Rik Wakeman like keyboard work right to the very end.

So, what do you think? Did I enjoy it? That would be a stunning ‘yes’. Go get it!!

Label: Self Released
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp

Scribed by: Guy Nolan