Review: Mt Mountain - Cosmos Terros

Mt Mountain are another in a rapidly growing list of fantastic psych bands coming out of Australia. Our antipodean cousins are producing some class material at the moment...already on this blog alone this year we've had Hotel wrecking City Traders and Comacozer, both class acts and we can definitely add Mt. Mountain to that list. They've already made a name for themselves in Oz and have shared a stage with heavyweights Sleep, Boris and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.

The album is opened by 'Seek The Sun', a slow burner with sitar-like guitars and tribal sounding drums. It is hypnotic in a lysergic Black Angels way with frontman Stephen Bailey's vocals gently intoning. The mesmerising haze is lifted intermittently by pummeling riffs and crashing cymbals before the dust settles again and the trance is resumed. 'Diablo' is heralded by an organ drone before more tribalistic drums are introduced with more understated vocals. It has a raga feel about it with the guitar knocking out some eastern motifs. 'Frieda' is a unholy melding of heavy riffs and dreamy psych. In the main the guitar weaves around a psych base and has touches of early Floyd about it at times; it sparkles like a diamond in the rough. As things progress they become far heavier, where the guitars sparkled they now bruise and the drums crash like there's no tomorrow..ace stuff. 'Elevation' starts heavy and stays heavy...some wonderful buzzing psych guitar at a breakneck tempo underscored by more pummeling drums. Just when you think the guitar is about to launch into hyperspace things come to a end, but this is just a brief hiatus and the track builds again, coming to a climactic ending of true acid jamming proportions, quite probably my favourite track. 'Moon Desire' is a doom-laden affair. The initial riff is heavy enough to move mountains and with the accompanying organ drones it has the feel of a true heavy psych monster. 'Pass On' closes the album and is another slow burner. The guitar chimes and the vocals gently cantillate...but there's a constant feel that things are gonna happen...and sure enough it evolves into another wonderful piece of jamming; drums and guitars working together to close the album in style.

'Cosmos Terros' is an intriguing amalgam of jangly psych and heavy doom-laden riffs, and it works! Taking aspects of early Floyd and mixing them with the heaviness of Sleep or OM they have produced an album that is emminently enjoyable and satisfying. The band have found an engaging recipe - the gentle psych passages lull the listener into an hypnagogic revery which is then broken by some bruising riffs. Another winner from downunder. 'Cosmos Terros' is released digitally and on vinyl on 22nd April. Check out the band's Bandcamp page for details.