UMUR
The Invisble Mountain is the 2nd full-length studio album by US stoner/ rock/ metal act Horseback. The album was originally released by Utech Records in 2009 but the album saw a re-release by Relapse Records in August 2010.
The album consists of 4 tracks, which are all rather lenghty. The closing track called Hatecloud Dissolving is almost 17 minutes long. The music on the album is psychadelic, repetitive and stoned rock/ metal. Actually the instrumental part of the album has little to do with metal but the vocals are raspy and somewhat akin to black metal styled vocals. The repetitive nature of the music is hypnotic and there are obvious nods toward krautrock and psychadelic rock. I´m thinking acts like early Kraftwerk, Faust and Neu! albeit at their most relaxed, mellow and repetitive. An act like the experimental Finnish black metal act Oranssi Pazuzu also comes to mind because of their similar krautrock influenced sound, but as mentioned above the instrumental side of The Invisble Mountain isn´t very "metal". The first three tracks on the album contains drums and have a beat while the above mentioned Hatecloud Dissolving closes the album with 17 minutes of floating ambient and psychadelic sound. Patience and the right mood will be required for some people ( including myself) to enjoy this one, but it´s a relaxing and mellow journey that soothes the senses. That actually goes for the whole album. Perfect music for relaxation/ meditation or maybe background music while reading a book. The organic production further enhances the warmth of the music.
The Invisble Mountain is pretty sure to be an aquired taste, but personally I enjoyed the album and for the genre it´s a very succesful album to my ears. The combination of the mellow, repetitive and psychadelic rock basis with the raspy vocals is quite unusual but works really well on the album and gives the music an original edge. A 3.5 star rating is warranted. Very interesting release this one.