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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
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In The Future
by Black Mountain
The Canadian indie rock band releases its sophomore album.
| LABEL: |
Jagjaguwar |
| RELEASE DATE: |
22 January 2008 |
| DISCS: |
1 disc |
| GENRE(S): |
Rock, Indie |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
91
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Loud-quiet-loud has never been so dizzying.
90
Under The Radar
In the Future is without a chink in its armor, the rare lull-free album, and shows that perhaps their greatest moments are indeed yet to come. [Winter 2008, p.80]
90
Alternative Press
What really impresses on the quintet's sophomore stunner is the way Black Mountain effortlessly shift from devastating to devastatingly beautiful. [Feb 2008, p.117]
90
Drowned In Sound
This is a wonderfully zealous experience, bristling with realised potential and fulfilled ambition.
83
Entertainment Weekly
It's heavy and appealingly dopey in equal measure. [25 Jan 2008, p.69]
80
Dusted Magazine
Black Mountain won’t win any prizes for innovation, but their slightly bruised brand of retro is far more fertile than that of their contemporaries.
80
Uncut
But where Black Mountain's message begins to get woolly the music is never anything less than exhilarating
80
PopMatters
This album is more consistent than the first album because it succeeds not only with the hard-rock shuffle of “Stormy High”, but also with the acoustic-driven, high-register of “Stay Free”.
80
All Music Guide
It's packed with stuff, but there's enough space here, and wonderfully warm atmospheres, to bring the listener right into the deeper sonic dimensions that Black Mountain is trying to create.
80
musicOMH.com
Rooted in the past this album may be, but it has genuine moments of original inspiration, both musically and lyrically, and a scope of ambition most bands would be scared to try out.
80
NOW Magazine
They put their cloudy heads together and came up with the power-chord-slashing and hobbitty keyboard werping goods but wisely didn’t lose all the dirty distortion and strummy acoustic bits.
80
Dot Music
If you're not a fan of their weighty retro riffs, Into The Future is not going to sway you; but those who loved their self-titled debut will thrill to the darker, more convincing sounds of former single 'Stormy High' with its Plantish wails and solid Sabbathy riffs.
80
Mojo
In The Future showcases a group who knows exactly what they're doing. [Feb 2008, p.101]
80
The Wire
This album eclipses their previous output and hits a consistent note of righteous force. [Jan 2008, p.69]
80
Q Magazine
In The Future has enough ideas to last several albums. Mostly, they work. [Feb 2008, p.98]
80
Blender
More diabolical and daring than the band’s shaggy 2005 debut, Future peaks with the primordial 'Bright Lights.'
80
Hartford Courant
Black Mountain pushes its songs further on In the Future, experimenting with druggy synthesizers and shifting musical dynamics on complex arrangements that veer from hazy psychedelia to brutal riffage.
80
Delusions of Adequacy
This is definitely a solid album from a band that is surely to get better.
80
The New York Times
On repeated listening the impression [of being a genre exercise or a hipster parody] gives way to the songs themselves, envisioning angels and demons and plaintively wondering about violence and inevitable desolation.
80
Billboard
It's this mix of the loud and the trippy that Black Mountain specializes in, and In the Future sees the band striving for epic proportions.
80
Filter
It's easy to zone out, but during several tracks you could be staring at a carpet stain for five minutes and still have time to screw your head back on to hit the moments of triumph. [Winter 2008, p.92]
78
cokemachineglow
In the Future is a great second act, a consolidation of strengths, better songwriting and more ideas.
75
The Phoenix
The fuzzy guitars start to blend together as the album progresses — the point, perhaps, but Black Mountain do well to break up the repetition with 'Stay Free,' an acoustic, falsetto ballad, and 'Queens Will Play.'
74
Pitchfork
Future raises the stakes considerably, leaving the band's musical talents to play catchup with their new material's epic-sized dimensions.
70
Tiny Mix Tapes
Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard it before... it’s taking drugs to make music to take drugs to, or something. But it’s still pretty damn fun, and Black Mountain do it with a higher idea-per-song ratio than most of their fellow fetishists.
70
Prefix Magazine
Black Mountain seems to have perpetrated some legitimate time travel, creating a record that could have sprung from an era of muscle cars, muscle tees, and moustaches.
70
Rolling Stone
In the Future has an even bigger kick [than their debut], with a surprising blues edge and Amber Webber's vocals adding a touch of Sandy Denny to the battle-of-Evermore vibe.
70
Spin
Black Mountain refine their position as the psychedelic hard-rock/goof-folk revivalists that you can actually stand for an entire album.
67
Austin Chronicle
Coming down from the, er ... mountain, well, British Columbia, bandleader Stephen McBean and his cohorts sound logjammed in the past on In the Future.
63
Lost At Sea
Those listeners who recognized Black Mountain as one in a long line of inward looking, backward thinking bands will find that In The Future ups the ante. That's not automatically a great thing, and it means that Black Mountain will yet again be greeted with abundant I know what you're doing and I don't like it reactions.
60
The Guardian
So there's ambition, here, yes--but where there's ambition, there's often overambition, and so it goes here.
60
Observer Music Monthly
When they rock out they are truly bruising, but, happily, their music is now underpinned with a new-found serenity.
60
Hot Press
This grand musical quest is often fruitless, and leaves this listener wondering what might have been, had the group demanded less of themselves.
60
Sputnikmusic
The first three songs will undoubtedly hook any listener into continuing the album, but the listener will find nothing as impressive as that opening statement.
40
Village Voice
Too quick and severe on the brakes, Black Mountain stunt their own grandiosity in the name of dynamics or patience.
The average user rating for this album is 8.9 (out of 10) based on 15 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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