Evoking the smoky British blues-rock of the '60s and '70s,
Mount Carmel return with their third album, Get Pure. Listening to the album, it quickly becomes clear that its title is more a call to arms than anything else as they attempt to wake all the bell-bottom-wearing boogie rock enthusiasts from their stony slumbers. While many bands have dived headfirst into revivalist rock, there's something about
Mount Carmel's sound that would make it seem plausible to see their name on an old poster for a
Cream show. And like its title implies, Get Pure's beauty lies in its simplicity. With just guitars, bass, drums, and tons of glorious fuzz,
Mount Carmel's sound is about as simple as it gets, eschewing experimentation in favor of making bona fide, by-the-book rock & roll. This isn't to say, however, that the band's sound is derivative. Rather than making you wish you were just listening to
Canned Heat or
Humble Pie, Get Pure will make you wonder if you haven't stumbled upon a forgotten album lost to dollar-bin obscurity decades ago. What's clear is that
Mount Carmel have a great reverence for this era, and it feels as though they approach songwriting the same way a historic preservationist might approach renovating an old house, painstakingly restoring the music to its former glory so that future generations may experience the pleasures of pure, unadulterated hard rock for the first time. ~ Gregory Heaney