SUPER GROUP: Mt. Desolation try to live up to super tag
FOLLOWING the likes of Jack White’s Dead Weather and Josh Homme’s Them Crooked Vultures, Mt. Desolation are the newest so called super group, this time spawning from humble beginnings of synthesized piano lovers Keane.
Taking guest offerings from eleven other musicians from the likes of Mumford & Sons, Noah and the Whale and The Killers, this is anything but a piano rock mixtape. Keane’s Jesse Quin andTim Rice-Oxley have instead brought these bands together in a celebration of country music... yes, country music.
Nevertheless there are some beautiful tracks on this album like the mesmeric first single, ‘State of Affairs’, which combines Quin’s emotive vocal with a swirling violin and The Killer’s Ronnie Vannucci adding some sultry soft percussion to create this record’s delicate stand out track. The instruments build to a cinematic crescendo with an added almost medieval sounding guitar before Quin continues on his melancholic journey, singing: “When the weather turns and blue skies reappear when you’re pressed, fallin’ and you climb Mount Desolation yet again and you find we’re all just ordinary men.”
Another sure fire hit is the Springsteen inspired, ‘Annie Ford’. A story of love and loss that is wearing a metaphorical leather jacket and cowboy boots, this song has a tinkling piano adding to an ever-present rocky lead guitar and Quin’s gritty vocal.
‘Bridal Gown’ is the next of many quality bluesy love songs, chugging along with a slow, layered sound highlighted by Oxley’s strained lead vocal that rings of the Guillemots' Fyfe Dangerfieldduring the high notes. The song winds with the aid of a soft piano and enchanting violin as he emotionally sings: “Until the moment I saw you in your bridal gown, I just assumed that you would always be around.”
Unfortunately there are some cringingly clichéd fillers on this record, probably the most difficult to listen to is the line dancing juggernaut that is ‘Platform 7’, a track that single-handedly detracts from this album. Think of everything you don’t like about English country music and this song has it; a heavily strummed guitar and bouncy piano, an overblown American accent, and yes… a ‘yeehaa’.
‘Midnight Ghost’ is another typical country song that feels like it’s trying too hard. About lonesome travelling through American states, which are named one by one to a slow drum beat, strained piano and what sounds like an old church organ, you feel like your on the set of a strange British remake of the Dukes of Hazzard.
The idea for Mt. Desolation came over a quiet pint in a pub, purely fuelled by Oxley and Quin’s love for country music and in a way it’s as if the pair are playing musical dress up as they go from being Johnny Cash to Bruce Springsteen and back again.
But it must be said, Mt. Desolation’s self titled first album is a mixed bag of charming country inspired tunes and hard to take seriously line dancing tracks. And it is the self gratifying love for the music that has been created that makes this collaborative country collection well worth a listen despite the odd rogue.
6/ 10
Also published on www.virgin.com
http://www.virgin.com/music/reviews/mt-desolation-album-review
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