If you mashed up the alternative genres skirting the mainstream during the’70s and ’90s and churned it out with one guitar and drum set in a snarling, sexy, dirty mess, you’d have “Mountain,” the second full-length by Murfreesboro-based band Turtle Bangs. I could draw countless comparisons to the in-your-face energy of Patti Smith, the raw minimalism of the White Stripes, the psycho killer weirdness of Tom Waits, the slow seduction of The Stooges and more, but you’d do better to hear it yourself.
Turtle Bangs are best known for tearing up house shows around Murfreesboro, and there’s something to be said for cramming into a tight living room to hear the music resonating so loudly, you feel like you’re taking a beating from the kick drum and a stabbing from the guitar. But after hearing “Mountain,” it’s pretty clear the band is ready for more venue gigs.
A strange, tribal riff (very Neil Young) oozes slowly out on first track “Desert Stone,” with guitarist/vocalist Greg Stephen’s cracking howl: “You are what I want/you are the desert stone/you are the serpent’s tongue.” The rhythm may be slow, but it’s white-hot. Then Casey Carter’s drum beats stumble one after another over Stephen’s fits and stops of crunchy riffs in “There Is No Time.” Bare-bones as the album may be, each song is profoundly multi-faceted with tracks that can go from jam-band slow to warped speed over the course of two minutes. They can perpetuate meandering riffs until they’ve caught you in a trance as well as pound you over the head with short, angry chords, as found in “Wipe.”
The last half of the album grows somewhat softer with songs like “Oh My Brother,” which has a different melodic quality than the others that swaps sordid and hectic thrashing for something that borders on pretty. And though “Mountain” is riddled with blues influence, Turtle Bangs mainly explore the different outfits of punk from frenzied, hyper-tempo lust songs (like “Shake”) to slow, spiraling striptease songs like “Molly” in which Stephen implores in a ghostly moan so much like Iggy Pop, “I wish that you could find me and put me back together again.”
“Mountain” possesses a perfected sloppiness that’s difficult to achieve, especially with only two instruments, but Turtle Bangs pulls it off, and is one of the only bands that can sing about shaking it (listen to “Shake”) and convince me to actually do that. For those who need a serious dose of grungy garage rock paired with punk, “Mountain” is the cure. Let the healing begin. – Jessica Pace