Notable participants in New Haven, Connecticut's 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
' 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
' 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
's eight songs takes a slightly different approach, but they all fit together perfectly, offering bright examples of the different facets of
' sound even as they're pushing it to new places. ~ Fred Thomas