Three reasons why Pink Mountaintops is a good name for Stephen McBean’s psyche-spiritual rock:

1. A mountaintop represents a peak in a landscape. Pink Mountaintops on this second album scale the heights of human emotion from love to war, body to soul, religion to sex and back again. In what stands as a fairly flat time for true expression McBean sits in the clouds.

2. As any mountaineer would tell you, the higher you get the hazier it becomes. Axis of Evol exists in a world almost devoid of visibility: trust McBean as he guides you through a blissful, hypnotic haze to an affecting climax. Unlike a purple retread this pink haze blends tradition with sedition. Modern recording techniques subvert what could have been blatant homage, giving a walking-through-time sense of wisdom.

3. As opposed to McBean’s similar and better known project Black Mountain, Pink Mountaintops appear just that, a few hundred shades lighter. The difference from black to pink is not always outwardly obvious but Axis of Evol isn’t the all-out-rock behemoth Black Mountain was. For a certain amount of closure though the name suffices.

What’s in a name, you ask? Well often nothing at all. But a quick glance at the track listing of Axis of Evol leaves little to the imagination: “Comas”, “New Drug Queens”, “Plastic Man, You’re the Devil”. More drug-infused drone-rock? Thankfully the music does much to expand the imagination.

The borderline mini-album/album (7 songs in 35 minutes) opens with the declaration from McBean that “no, I’m not heading down the highway to hell” on “Comas” and for about three minutes you believe him as he caresses you with an acoustic yearning M Ward would be proud of. By the time “Cold Criminals” rumbles in with its cries that the “devil got us in his plans” you’re ready to hang the sucker on the spot.

The strange coupling of “New Drug Queens” and “Slaves” comes next: the former a fuzzed up drum-machine driven rocker, and the latter a simplistic hypnotic ode to coming clean. While the pair could be described as the valley before the mountainous peak that follows – “Plastic Man, You’re the Devil” – only the harshest critic could call them a write-off.

But if it’s something truly memorable you want then you’ll find it on “Plastic Man”. With suitably fiery lyrics against what can only be discerned to be material culture, the song captures an anger so ambiguously that its lines are delivered vaguely. Take for example, “Plastic man, you’re the devil, and Satan is your son. Axis of evol, we won’t smoke that shit you’re on”.

Yeah there’s hate but you can be happy listening to it. Although a highlight it’s not all downhill from there. The following two tracks keep up the themes of freedom and how to attain freedom through spiritual means. It must be said that getting religious with rock has rarely sounded so impressive.

Home recorded and largely self-produced by McBean himself, Axis of Evol captures the mountainous ups and downs of love and hate. But that’s where the name game ends unfortunately – if we go any further McBean may be aligned with the latest coffee “innovation” from a certain plastic brand and Pink Mountaintops aren’t travelling down that highway.