Sunday 27 August 2017

Red Mountains - Slow Wonder (Album Review)


Release date: September 1st 2017. Label: All Good Clean Records. Format: DD/Vinyl

Blight – Tracklisting

Home
Rat King
Oak
Endless Queen
Stone
Fog
Cellar Door
Acid Wedding
Returning

Members

Simen Mathiassen - Drums
Sverre Dalen - Bass
Jostein Wigenstad - Guitar
Magnus Riise - Guitar / Vocal

Review

You ever wondered what Pink Floyd would sound like if they decided to include Desert/Stoner Rock vibes into their legendary Progressive Rock sound. Well I think Red Mountain's excellent new album - Slow Wander - would be the wonderful result. As Red Mountains take a more Psychedelic/Prog Rock approach on their new album. Not a million miles away from Pink Floyd themselves.

Slow Wander sees the band play strands of classic sounding Prog Rock and merges it with elements of modern sounding Desert/Stoner Rock vibes.

Opening track - Home - opens the album with supreme confidence as Red Mountains play a loud bombastic style of Desert/Stoner Rock with a prog rock style influence being heard within the vocals. The one thing that stands out on this album compared to their debut album is the production. Whilst Red Mountain's debut album was a great album, its production was slightly muffled and let down in places.

They have no issues with Slow Wander, as the album sounds loud and fresh from the start. When the band start playing heavy psychedelic noises on the opening track - Home, you feel every note and vocal coming at you from all corners. Home sets the scene for the rest of the album. As heavy psychedelic desert/stoner riffs give way to the more adventurous progressive rock rhythms.

Second track - Rat King - is one of the best songs on the album with its ample delivery of Progressive Stoner based moments. The vocals and lyrics compliment the music superbly well. Rat King has a grunge feel to it as the song moves to its natural conclusion.
Third track - Oak - is where the Stoner sound is gone and replaced with a more direct seventies sounding psych/prog approach. A very cool and mellow tune to show how expertly Red Mountains can change the mood of the album for the better.

Fourth track - Endless Queen - is the longest song on the album running for around eleven minutes. Red Mountains strip the Desert/Stoner Rock sounds yet again and to focus more on the laidback prog rock vibe. The vocals are quite laid-back and the song has moments of dream-like post-rock appearing here and there.

The next song - Stone - sees Red Mountains return to their Desert/Stoner Rock roots. It's a heavier and upbeat song with a lot more groove compared to the other songs on the album. The final four songs on the album - Fog, Cellar Door, Acid Wedding and Returning - manage to merge both the main primary sounds of the album especially on Fog and Acid Wedding.

Slow Wander is an outstanding album from Red Mountains and it's one that has the potential to surprise a lot of people within the Stoner Rock and Progressive Rock communities.

Words by Steve Howe
Thanks to Red Mountains for the promo. Slow Wander will be released on DD/Vinyl via All Good Clean Records from September 1st 2017.
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