Send "Pink Mountaintops " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Nowtoronto |
 Yet another solid offering from Vancouver’s Stephen McBean. The guy’s on fire. Pink Mountaintops’ third album lulls and never lags. While the 70s psychedelic and classic rock influences in his other project, Black Mountain, have instant appeal, it’s less obvious what makes Pink Mountaintops – his gentler, more cerebral band – work so well. McBean’s voice has a rugged plainness about it, and the tunes aren’t tremendously memorable or inventive.What McBean has, though, is terrific instincts. Every instrument brims with tonal depth, warmth and texture. His arrangement choices are flawless. While guitar stays front and centre, piano, strings, group vocals and slide guitar make fleeting, effective appearances. Godspeed’s Sophie Trudeau and the Webber sisters handle vocals on a number of songs, a nice change-up. And the decision to position the fuzz-thick guitar solo on While We Were Dreaming as if from a great distance? Sweet-Jesus genius....full text |
| Lostatsea |
| All you need to know about the Pink Mountaintops' latest release occurs fifteen seconds into the album opener, "Axis: Thrones of Love." Through a fuzzed-out drone of oh-so-psych guitars comes a crystal clear clatter of two perfectly placed piano chords. This simple structure sums up the radiance of Stephen McBean, be it with his band Black Mountain, or this, his "softer-side" gig: while he creates a lot of smoke on the water, he manages to transcend the haze with striking musical clarity. McBean isn't just trafficking Stoner rock for wide-eyed Gen-X, Y and Z types. He is too savvy a songwriter to take the bait that has folks still hooked on sonics of the Seventies. Leave that phish food for the crop of jam bands aping to sound fresher than day-old leftover salmon. The Black or Pink may bring forth the spirits of Gilmour, Richards and Page, but McBean and Company do it on their own confident terms. And with each successive release this Vancouver veteran is gaining serious strength: Outside Love simply kicks classic ass. It should be required at every biker bar jukebox in the land. Outside Love follows the Pink Mountaintops' excellent Axis of Evol, yet sounds like it's hot the heels of Black Mountain's most-awesome 2008 release, In The Future. This makes sense, since Evol was perfectly paired with Black Mountain's self-titled release during the same period. Conclusion? Screw the band name, McBean is a temporal writer, and he channels his unique vision into equal parts regardless of his color-coded outfit. It's a bold and brash move that is working wonders thus far. Feeling hard as metal? Black (Sabbath) Mountain it is. In the mood for psychedelia-laced sweetness? Call up the Pink (Floyd) Mountaintops....full text |
| Avclub |
| A valentine “for the hunters and the hunted / and the wild and the hoods and the thieves,” Outside Love—in its portrayal of a world where the honesty of lust is as beautiful as the purest of hearts—feels like gospel music for non-believers. A bit more raucous and a hell of a lot more cohesive than 2006’s Axis of Evol, Outside Love finds frontman Stephen McBean (who also leads Black Mountain) continuing to rewrite the 1960s, with much improved results. The Phil Spector-meets-Pink Floyd vibe remains, though the hippie-esque feel of such songs as “The Gayest Of Sunbeams” is matched by the fuzzed-out bliss of album opener “Axis: Thrones Of Love” and the follow-up track “Execution.” It’s as if McBean realized that the worlds that he inhabits in both Pink Mountaintops and the more hard-rocking Black Mountain—his primary songwriting outlet—are not mutually exclusive (and watch for the sly Sabbath reference in the album’s title track). It’s a realization to be thankful for....full text |
Pink Mountaintops lyrics
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