The music industry must rue the day the Arctic Monkeys decided to let fans download their songs for free. The streaming of music and making tracks (or even whole albums) available for download has confirmed the worst nightmare of many major record labels: they may now be surplus to requirements in the marketing and launch of new artists. Michigan 3-piece Drawing Mountains join the growing list of bands to self-release material through their MySpace and Facebook pages: “It’s our labor of love and as such we decided we’d share it with everyone we could.” But the world is paved with good intentions, and even ignoring the possible pitfalls of this approach as a long-term business model (although hasn’t done the Arctic Monkeys any harm, has it?), is the music any good or not?

Happily, Ventures provides a nice taste of things to come from Drawing Mountains and would actually be well worth worth the cost of a CD. Drawing on the explosive energy of a power trio, surely the basis of the modern rock vernacular (even the Ramones was a trio … they just added a singer!), there are ambitious elements here of progressive rock and shoegaze mixed with swathes of jazz experimentalism and post-rock instrumentation. There’s also a feast of guitar effects mixed up in the songwriting … but dont let that put you off, the band have largely avoided the self-indulgence a lot of prog succumbs to by keeping the overall sound fresh and interesting and serving up some nice songs.

Opener ‘War paint’ leaps out of the speakers at you as the band riff heavy with punk bass and guitar, something like Black Sabbath’s ‘Warpigs’, a short sharp shock … but with 70s handclaps! Where are we going with this, I wonder, as the singer makes an apocalyptic cry: “When it’s all said and done stained faces will scream for what’s beneath, like painted face monsters with broken egos marching towards war every day”? ‘A Panoramic Dream’ dramatically drops the pace, a prog-jazz ballad opening with sounds of running water and melodic Fripp-like guitar, more epic in scope than the opener, building to a crescendo of heavy blasts but ending strangely with effects sounding like a spaceship taking off in a sandstorm. The bursts of open-instrumentation of this and other tracks remind me of Canadian post-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor, or even parts of the King Crimson oeuvre circa 1970 ‘In The Wake of Poseidon’, singing kept so a minimum to allow the band’s expressiveness full reign.

The next song is untitled, and the pace picks up again with opening bassline sounding like Nirvana’s ‘Lounge Act’ from Nevermind, but then settles into a more even tempo, evoking the dreamy spirit of Jeff Buckley on ‘Grace’ (“all I want is to be free all you need is all gone like ice melted by the fire of my eyes oh burn burn burn on me …”). There’s always a sense of something about to happen on ‘Ventures’, a gapless recording intended for listening in one go, so some more strange guitar effects seque into the next composition, ‘Banjo/Post-traumatic stress’. There’s a nice marching jazz drum here but the song is also itchy to change mood. All this noodling reminds me of great jam-band Phish, or even indie veterans Pavement, ‘Banjo’ having a nice Malkmus skewed vocal. ‘Daedelus’ has bluesy Doors-sounding (Robby Krieger) jug band guitar, but I’m starting to lose my musical bearings … I’ve only dabbled in prog, but these guys live and breath it. ‘Um’ is also mostly instrumental, keen musicianship from the bass and drums playing off against each other like a pair of lovebirds locked in flight. The drummer particularly opens his shoulders on this one, applying thunderous pressure aka John Bonham.

The classic rock (as well as post-rock) themes are celebrated on closer ‘In the Dark’, a highlight and fitting climax to the album. The song starts harmlessly enough, but then builds and builds before unleashing some wild soaring guitar-shredding effects in its swan song, something Steven Wilson might conjur up for Porcupine Tree, or Vini Reilly cranking it up post-rock style with The Durutti Column. Parting shot from singer “I know what it’s like to die with the weight of the world on my back; it never felt as alone in the dark” as he stomps off into the sunset … axe victim! Come on, we’ve all been there!

Quite a nice idea to clock in at just over 30 minutes, naturally leaving us to want more. Based on the energy and vitality of this music, Drawing Mountains Ventures is much more than just promotional material, rather it has the measure of a true album showcasing great ambition and a range of talents most bands would die for. The Michigan trio are clearly ready to take things to the next level with a major label signing … if there are any left by the time of writing?