A raised eyebrow last week, when the new Earth album arrived, accompanied by a press release citing Pentangle, Fairport Convention and Tinariwen as key influences. It’s been a fair while, of course, since Dylan Carlson’s outfit made music quite so doomy and reductive as their reputation.
After yesterday’s technical grief, I’ve now managed to play the new Black Mountain album three or four times. There’s a lot of stuff about angels laying their halos down and demons hiding in the shadows here. Blood is spreading across the walls, witchy children have black magic touches and, pointedly, Stephen McBean and Amber Webber chant in “Bright Lights”, “We love the night and all the witchery.”
