Nicki Chavoya Photo
Mountain Movers.
“I Could Really See Things,” the opener from Mountain Movers’ latest — the self-titled Mountain Movers — begins with a rich, distorted guitar drone that almost sounds more like the end of a song than the beginning of one. But then a second guitar joins it, a wavering metallic wail that opens into a volcanic roar as the drums and bass crash into the song. A full minute passes before the rhythm section drops into a heavy groove. The singer’s voice is drenched in echo.
“I left my house through the side door / we had this little side yard that led out to a parking lot / I walked across the parking lot and went to another parking lot,” he sings. “And I could see something in the sky.” The music carries the meaning of what he saw, something terrifying and ecstatic. That vision propels “I Could Really See Things” through over 14 minutes of hypnotic squall, and the entire six-song album — which the band released last Friday — is simultaneously Mountain Movers’ most adventurous and most cohesive album to date.
The New Haven-based band — songwriter Dan Greene on vocals and guitar, Rick Omonte on bass, Kryssi Battalene on lead guitar, and Ross Menze on drums — has been playing as a quartet for several years, and it shows. Where earlier Mountain Movers records were more orchestrated affairs, leaning into Greene’s songwriting, on Mountain Movers the songs, strong as they are, are landscapes for the band to explore. So the wistful, dreamy “Everyone Cares,” at the 2:20 mark grows into something much fiercer that doubles the song’s lifespan. The swaying lilt of “Angels Don’t Worry” turns into a slow-motion explosion, a vision of flames and flying stones expanding ever outward until the last wisps of feedback disappear into the clouds. Even the relatively fleet “Vision Television” fills its lungs fully with air by the time it’s done.
But the album is defined by its opener — “I Could Really See Things” — and its closer, “Unknown Hours,” which across its length of over 10 minutes showcases just what Battalene can do with a guitar. As Omonte and Menze lay down a rock-solid foundation and Greene eggs her on, Battalene soars. It’s not just the notes she chooses; it’s the way she plays with their tone and texture, unleashing phrase after mesmerizing phrase. She makes room for the band to fill a vast sonic space. By the end the sound is huge, huge and still growing, even when it ends. More than ever before, at the end of this latest record, the band is true to its name, having created music that really does feel big enough to move mountains.