Pink Mountaintops
Vancouver, BC
Velvet Underground, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Black Mountain
The Pink Mountaintops’ contribution to the ever changing indie rock world is a combination of backwoods balladry, psych rock swagger, and a bewildering bounty of genre blending songs that ebb and flow through the wilds of sex, drugs, and Danielle Steel.
Rising from the cold Canadian wilderness through a cloudy, muffled haze, Stephen McBean straddles the Vancouver twin peaks that are Black Mountain and The Pink Mountaintops to release his inner Moses while rewriting the tablets of rock. The former, you may recall, graced many a music mag’s annual best of lists in 2005 with their self-titled riff heavy 70’s salute to a Zeppelin breaking bread on the Sabbath. But it was one year earlier when Stephen’s solo project The Pink Mountaintops hit the grass chugging with their self-titled album that lyrically fucks fire, fucks mountains, fucks lakes and screws fakes over a groove so hypnotic, you never question the sincerity of such bold sexual conquests.
Their 2006 followup Axis of Evol picks up right where they left off, furthering the band musically and continuing to extract the volatile components of classic rock and set the pink peak ablaze with fuzzed out electronica, bleary guitars and beautiful male/female vocal trade-offs, while their most recent release, 2009’s Outside Love, shakes off the last few flecks of Lo-Fi grit for a more evolved, more polished sound that pits love against hate, pegging McBean as a king of the mountain running ragged for his queen. More than just a side-project, this full-fledged band leaves you wondering if pink is indeed the new black.
I am a Vampire!!!!