Black Mountain, The NightTerrors @ The Corner,Melbourne (21/02/2011)

Tue 1st Mar, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Monday nights would have to be the least rockiest of all the nights. For working stiffs, the decision to venture out on the loneliest of evenings is often tempered with the danger of over-doing it and stuffing your entire week. The choice of piling into that fourth over-priced stubby (and with the real possibility of many more to come as a result of that pivotal one), is fraught for those without the planning foresight to structure their Tuesdays appropriately. For the punters squeezing into The Corner Hotel recently, the chance of kicking up heels with Vancouver troupe Black Mountain is certainly cause for a 4-beer night and beyond, and the atmosphere is crackling into the cool evening air.

On first appearance, The Night Terrors seem a curious choice for support. What does a gaggle of synth-driven, pulsating psych-pop really have in common with the urban lumberjack brigade centred around Black Mountain’s Stephen McBean? The answer is not much, aside from the obvious nods towards keyboard sounds, tom-heavy drum work and a fair dose of psychedelia.

The vocal-less set came across as a little overblown and coiffured, much like front-man Miles Brown’s immaculately bleached asymmetrical and wonderfully androgynous hairstyle. Brown takes the show to the brink of prog heaven with his mesmerising hand wafting, gracefully and tactfully manipulating the Moog theremin to within an inch of farce. He regularly brings it back from the brink to somewhere near bearable with regular ventures busting out some crunchy bass lines. The highlight was Righteous, held together with crafty tinkering by fellow synther Nedd Jones and someone who appears to be ex-Augie March guitarist Adam Donovan.

The ubiquitous mass ciggie exodus is cut short with the band of the night coming on in record time, pounding out a surprise staccato entrance with the title track of their new offering Wilderness Heart. An upfront trio of long, sludgy and dense numbers are exactly what the crowd are baying for from the Vancouver native’s second visit to our shores. Sandwiched in the middle of two newer numbers (_Old Fangs_ coming in at third in the set), old favourite Evil Ways solidifies the intensity with which this band is adored by its fans.

The set works its way in trios and the rather manic introduction gives way across to slightly dreamier songs, lead by the Neil Young-esque Angels from 2008’s opus In The Future. The album track-listing rounds out the trifecta with Tyrants and Wucan maintaining a consistent tone. The space within these songs allows an element of mind wandering, and it’s not long before the imposing stage presence of this 5-piece is dwelt upon. The apparent band leader stands off to stage right, facing inwards. Bassist Matt Camirand and drummer Joshua Wells double over their instruments in exertion during the higher octane numbers, while keyboardist Jeremy Schmidt is much of a headless instrumentalist, hidden behind the over-the-top hanging PA. Which leaves the elephant in the room – the weird, frontal assault of Amber Webber aimlessly left in the middle of the stage to her own devices. Instrument-less, save for a couple of superfluous moments with shakers and the like, Webber affects a detached boredom during the many and long forays into psychedelic prog rock, and spends a decent portion of the set as nothing more than a back-up singer plonked self-consciously front and centre. It’s off-putting, but also a curious focal point as the lads often loose themselves, head-down naturally, within their spiralling noodling.

The next triplet is possibly the set’s weakest point; a meandering and rootless grouping which is at best a bit of navel-gazing with an acoustic feel. Buried By The Blues and Space In Your Mind are lackadaisical affairs, which have the last-train-home clock-watchers getting a little anxious. Set Us Free lightens the mood considerably and segues into the gig’s final trio (by now expanded to become a quartet and thereby nullify any half-baked reviewer’s ideas of how this set is mathematically designed). This quartet is an altogether different beast, highlighting the rhythmic sexual charge and release, hinted at in Druganaut and fully explored in new song Rollercoaster.

And it’s the sexual exploration of Rollercoaster that fades into the distance as this reviewer rues the city’s public transport options and hightails it for the last train. A quick glance at the setlist posted online further deepens this regret, as an encore packed full of iconic songs including Hair Song and Don’t Run Our Hearts Around farewells the Canadians from our shores yet again. Damn, I hate weekday gigs.