Steve McBean has remained staunchily dedicated to the different sides of hard rock with his main project Black Mountain for close to a decade now. However, his other significant project Pink Mountaintops has been just as worthy for other reasons – the former embraces sludgy riffs and proggy instrumentation, while the latter has a looser template that can vary from blissful psychedelia to reverb-laden indie pop. Now forget everything you’ve read in this description to begin to get into the mindset of what his latest full-length Get Back sounds like, since McBean has set aside his more genial side to deliver a ballsier record that has more grit and attitude. The story of this album started when McBean moved to Los Angeles, finding a likeminded soul in Icarus Line member Joe Cardamone and subsequently working together on an album that wholly embraces the hardy psychedelia that has shaped this city in many ways. Not to mention the fact that there’s a laundry list of LA-based musicians that collaborated in the making of Back like Rob Barbato, Annie Hardy and Steve Kille. "Ambulance City" is just one of the many rollicking layers found throughout the album, a pulsing rocker that rides a motorik rhythm as McBean and his cohorts implement some fuzz-flaked guitars. There’s much to dig in Mcbean’s newest endeavor, one that should introduce and please both old and new fans alike with its contorted explorations on how to reshape (and sometimes deteriorate) the classic design of rock n’ roll. Get Back will be released on April 29 through Jagjaguwar.
