Outside Love

Lush pop rock. Pink Mountaintops is the side project of Stephen McBean (of Black Mountain). This album is a move towards old-school pop for him, and the results are great. He takes Black Mountain’s fuzzed out, hazy neo-psych heavy rock and blends it with retro AM pop, some twang, some experimental leanings, and Phil Spector wall of sound saturation. Even the thematic content of the record is throwback- the songs are all about love, and the cover of a romance novel is playfully apt. Guest apperances by Sophie Trudeau (Silver Mt. Zion, Godspeed), Ted Bois (Destroyer), Jesse Sykes (Sunn O)))), Phil Wanscher (Whiskeytown), Josh Stevenson (Jackie O Motherfucker), Ashley Webber (Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy), and Amber Webber, Matthew Camirand, and Joshua Wells of Black Mountain make this album an indie wet dream. Play this record- it’s just majestic, reverbed, glistening, fuzzy, warm, and gorgeous. Even those of you who avoid the normal indie pap… this is delightful, classic pop. FCC on track 8 and maybe 9.

*1. Sleigh bells, epic drums, lush violins, backing vocals, track title references Jimi Hendrix (“Axis: Thrones of Love”), fuzzy, beautiful, melodic. Last 30 seconds are slow distorted fade out. (4:50)
2. Poppy; vocals are double tracked with effects, some twangy country influence in on here, piano. (3:53)
3. Dreamy guitar starts, female vocals, snare drum lightly pulses underneath soft, pretty song. (3:55)
4. Slow, melodic acoustic strumming with violins, backing vocals, overproduced, but not in a bad way. Loud guitars but no drums. (3:53)
*5. Harmonica, latin-tinged percussion, flamenco fuzz pop. Guitar riffs are catchy. Few G-D bombs but as far as I know that is okay with the FCC people. Really interesting track. (3:23)
6. “Come Down” is the track title. Drug references are definitely not beyond McBean. It is a really warm, pretty pop song with the huge fuzzy production featuring bells and melodic backing vocals. (2:10)
7. Shimmering, dreamy guitars, slow, sweet, backing female vocals. Title track. A slow burn with some twang and pathos. (5:26)
*8. Piano chords jingle along slowly, with female backing vocals. More alt-country influence with slide guitar and violins, really lush production with vocals. Gospelly backing vocals. McBean's voice sounds great on this one. Some strong moments, but a little long. One FCC. (6:21)
9. Thumping dance bass drum beat. Electro pop rock. Maybe an f-bomb, I couldn’t tell. Track is not that special, so just skip anyway. (4:14)
*10. Really full Spector production here with violins, shimmering guitars, blissful backing female vocals. Just really infectious pop. (4:51)