Mountains: at The Stone Fox (Nashville, TN) Mon. February 25, 2013

Mountains

Pop/Rock

Nashville Scene Critic's Pick …

There’s a 2003 Arthur Magazine interview with My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields that expresses the shoegaze hero’s boredom with production techniques that don’t do more to incite wonder in the listener. It came across my radar last week in the deluge of interest surrounding the band’s surprise release of mbv, and the notion seems relevant when thinking about and listening to the Brooklyn drone duo Mountains. Mountains wrap acoustic guitars and synthesizers in textures so dense and otherworldly that it’s almost impossible to avoid being subdued in their patient glow. I won’t go on about the “journey,” as many a lazy instrumental music writer is wont to do, but I’ll submit that something akin to a sublime state is easily achievable here. Opening is Across Tundras, the prolific locals who convey similar feelings through a sludgy, rock-centered prism.

—RYAN BURLESON