Earlimart - Answers And Questions

(Suicide Squeeze, 2006)

Lush drama from these underdoggies. I’m kinda puzzled as to why there isn’t more lovin’ thrown Earlimart’s way; they’ve put together a solid catalog reminiscent of disbanded peers like the Delgados or a bleepsnbloops-free Grandaddy, but haven’t seemed to ever receive the attention those groups did. Oh well and oh shucks – they soldier onward. “Answers and Questions” came out in advance of album no. 5, Mentor Tormentor (where it also appears), and showed off the band’s continuing mastery of the dense, dreamy, mildly-psychedelic (are those mellotrons?) midtempo pop it jumped into on Everyone Down Here. Thanks to the meaty drums and churning guitars at the end, the song’s not too adulty, as these things can sometimes be, and thus it’s not too bad. Is outta sight, in fact. “Carruthers Boy,” which is on this single and this single only, focuses on vocal interplay and strips away most of the sonic layers of the A-side to show without distraction that Aaron Espinoza knows his way around a melody like a something knows its way around a whatsit. By which I mean: Yep!

Black Mountain - Stormy High

(Suicide Squeeze, 2006)

Golly, nice work, everyone. “Stormy High” is doomy – yet somehow bouncy?! – riffery over a martial beat, plus jaunty Floydian keys that prog things up further… wowzers. Music for longhairs: scalp & chin! Melodic sense comin’ out the nostrils, and just enough technical know-how on display to impress without being Too Much or Too Slick. There’s a general fidelity to the freakrock cause in the Black Mountain camp, but don’t ignore, chartwatching friends, the fact that those male/female vox, especially on “Voices,” hew awful close to NASA-country fuggers Oakley Hall, them being no slouch at writin’ a good one themselves. And certainly don’t forget that neither of these tracks pop up in the same version elsewhere, so pull whatever you need to pull to palm a copy. Got to admit I never thought Black Mountain would top the rolling bong-nut grooviness of “Druganaut,” but they make a purty damn good run at it on both sides of this one, and – know what? – the total package wins in the end. No bum notes here.