Expecting more of the post-hardcore indie rock of their 2007 debut
Bitter River, this Sterling, VA sextet’s follow-up threw a change-up when a dead-red fastball was expected. Maybe the gaggle of softer songs on
Bitter was a harbinger, but
Mount Hope is more in tune with intimately tranquil, backwoods, fingerpicked folk-pop in the
Bon Iver,
Iron & Wine, and even
Harvest/
Harvest Moon Neil Young ("Frozen Man,” “Dreams Are Class") school, with an odd ambient sheen in the back of some tracks. Those ghostly drones buzzing underneath hearken to slowcore and
Idaho records, as Chris Taylor coos and hums like he’s coming to you from a parallel universe. Don’t miss the eight-minute epic of hovering alien spacecraft sound, “Red Room Blues,” its waves of ambient noise gently massaging your brain and turning it into benign mush! ~ Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover