Heavy Metal Textbooks

BLACK MOUNTAIN: IV
Here's a famous quote that comes to mind when I hear Black Mountain: Black Mountain doesn't care what you want to hear; they just play what they want to play.  The result is a really original take on hippy rock, with several classics on each of their albums.  A lot of Black Mountain tunes are a bit too mellow for me, but I sure do respect their sincerity, originality and musical ability.  Here's one of my favorites from IV, "Mothers of the Sun."  Stick with this one; takes three and a half minutes for guitar to reappear after the intro, but it's worth the wait.  I love the album's trippy vibe, tasteful fuzz guitar sound and Stephen McBean's soloing around 4:40.

Here's "Constellations".  In addition to the cool guitar sound and hint of cowbell, I love the trading off between Stephen and Amber Webber on vocals.  Their voices complement each other even more than usual on this one.

Black Mountain are (right to left I believe):

Stephen McBean - lead vocals, backup vocals, guitars, claps, synth, percussion, keyboards 
Arjan Miranda - bass, bass synth, guitar, bass pedals, ebow guitar 
Jeremy Schmidt - synths, bass synth, sequences, hammond, vocoder, mellotron, 
Amber Webber - lead vocals, claps 
Joshua Wells - drums, percussion, claps, piano, synth, rhodes piano, backup vocals, sequences, bass synth, phase rhodes, wurlitzer 

Other performers: 
Warren Hill - backup vocals 
Eyvind Kang - viola and violin (Line Them All Up) 
Josiah Boothby - french horn (Line Them All Up)

For those of you that prefer it less trippy and more heavy, I've got you covered next weekend.  
Until then - ULTRA