World What World

Notable participants in New Haven, Connecticuts active freak scene, Mountain Movers evolved from their chamber pop beginnings in the mid-2000s into a monolithic force of noisy, guitar-driven scrawl. After solidifying a lineup that focused on the dynamic chemistry between guitarists Kryssi Battalene and Dan Greene, each of Mountain Movers subsequent albums has become more improvisatory and reached to further cosmic depths. Eighth album World What World finds an uneasy midway point between chaotic sounds and weary sentiments, playing with a rainbow of abrasive feedback tones, sun-blinded grooves, and surrealistic lyrical imagery that tends toward both melancholic reflection and blissful confusion. Full-force tunes like the slow-burning opener I Wanna See the Sun or Way Back to the World recall Neil Young and Crazy Horse at their most amplified, injecting the moody, reflective songs with extra layers of caustic guitar noise. In tracks like these, elements of rootsy, rural songwriting -- straightforward song structures, twangy open chords, streamlined vocal melodies -- get turned on their head by screeching wah-wah solos or sheets of distortion in line with Japanese psychedelic rockers like Les Rallizes Denudes or White Heaven. Several instrumentals take Mountain Movers muse in different directions, from the jaw-clenching Krautrock push of Final Sunset to the mellow drift of The Last City. Haunted Eyes finds the band reaching new ground, with a forlorn, distant sound somewhere between the breathy jangle of the Clientele and 60s private-press legends Index. Each of World What Worlds eight songs takes a slightly different approach, but they all fit together perfectly, offering bright examples of the different facets of Mountain Movers sound even as theyre pushing it to new places. ~ Fred Thomas