It was just hours after I saw the thread on the forum recommending Asheville sludgers Old Mountain (itself drawn from a review posted by the ever-vigilant Doommantia) that the band reached out to me with a link to the Bandcamp stream of their track “Clarissa.” Though the Bandcamp only lists the song with with title, in their Big Cartel store, you can find it listed with the other two songs on their demo as “Clarissa (Explains Hallucinogenics).”

Being of the generation that once dreamed of climbing that ladder (Sam didn’t know how good he had it), I can get down with paying homage to Melissa Joan Hart, but more importantly, with a track length of 17 minutes, the song definitely gives enough time to get a sense of what Old Mountain are really about.

And what they’re about is heavy. Though “Clarissa” doesn’t use its full runtime for pummeling, they certainly pack plenty of it in there. Thunderous riffage, blown out screams, quicksanding bottom end and searing crash are all elements that’ll be familiar enough to fans of Southern sludge, but true to their name, Old Mountain show a kind of patience in “Clarissa” that’s rare for a new band. Couple that with massive tones from guitarist N. Brown and bassist/vocalist M. Reisch, set it to drummer A. Milstein‘s forceful hits, and it’s the kind of plod that gets dudes from Animal Planet thinking they’ve just found bigfoot.

I didn’t want to read Doomantia‘s writeup before posting my own, so if I’m just repeating what’s there, I apologize, but for fans of the new school of sludge — a less apocalyptic Thou comes to mind, or older Rwake — Old Mountain should be a welcome find. After about 12 minutes, “Clarissa” cuts to noisy droning and eventually gives way to a conversation about phantom limbs, inadvertently showing that the band doesn’t take themselves too seriously. Like the slowly churning riffs that came before, that too can only serve them well as they move forward.

Here’s “Clarissa” from Old Mountain‘s Bandcamp page:

Tags: Asheville, North Carolina, Old Mountain, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 9th, 2011 at 3:08 pm and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.