Pink Mountaintops – Outside Love

Goodness me, I don't know when I've last been quite so taken with an album. Pink Mountaintops are basically the band version of an alter-ego for Black Mountain songwriter/guitarist/co-vocalist Stephen McBean and a whole bunch of collaborators, which here, on the band's third album, include members of A Silver Mt Zion, GY!BE, SunO))), Jackie-O Motherfucker, The Organ and more (I could go on, but want to save word count for hymning this album's praises...).And what a glorious confection they have whipped up here. Having spent quite some time trying to get to the nub of just why this just works so beautifully, and affectingly, I've come to the hesitant conclusion that a lot of it is down to the beautiful contrasts and juxtapositions with which the album is seamed. What do I mean by this? Well, for example, this is at one and the same time very much a romantic love album yet also crammed with visceral, dark and sometimes bloodthirsty imagery. Hearts are referenced many times, but not in your standard hearts-and-flowers way, instead in violent, raw and graphic phrases like "...if I could find your heart / I would pull it from your chest / And smash it with my fist / Till it was beating" (from 'While We Were Dreaming') or "You can suck out the blood / But you can't kill the heart" ('Vampire').Most songs sound amazing: Spector-esque ('Axis: Thrones of Love', 'Execution' and 'Closer to Heaven' in particular), with a beautiful lush fullness, often enhanced by an accompanying chorus of voices ('Come Down': a non-cultish Polyphonic Spree, 'Outside Love') but then just as you are getting caught up in the way they sound, an arresting and totally original bit of lyrical imagery comes along that places a picture in your heads that is intriguingly at odds with music. A couple of these worth quoting in full are: "I know it ain't easy / To keep rambling on / When the voices in your skull are all screaming" (from the heart-rendingly sombre 'While We Were Dreaming'); "Angels burning in sin and shame / Draped across the lost highway" ('Outside Love') and best of all "I sent you a rose / Electrically wired / When things burn this brightly / Don't let them explode" ('Closer to Heaven').References to heaven and hell, to angels and to vampires and Satan are all included in the mix, as if in acknowledgement that you can't find heaven, or appreciate true love without the concomitant existence and awareness of hell, darkness and heartbreak. This is delivered by a variety of vocal means, sometimes a single dark deep male voice ('And I Thank You'), or other times more fragile sounding and/or accompanied by a beguiling female counterpoint, or a joyous choral singalong that punctuates the peak moments of many tracks. A few of the songs have a distinctly country twang to them also (parts of 'Vampire', 'Holiday', 'Closer to Heaven' and particularly 'And I Thank You'), which again might seem, on paper, like a weird marriage with the sweet lush (wall of) sound found elsewhere but, again, just works. Beautifully.So, with the creepy-visceral-cynical words and images counterbalancing the rich-lush-full-sweet sounds, I reckon you've got something here that will be enjoyed - no, adored - by both those of you who are mainly interested in the music and those who give equal weight to lyrics. I for one am totally sold by this endearing, disturbing, contradictory and ultimately quite quite lovely album. 90%Pink Mountaintops: 'Vampire' Pink Mountaintops: 'While We Were Dreaming' Pink Mountaintops on Myspace