Beat Circus — Boy From Black Mountain
Boy From Black Mountain is the second album in a trilogy called American Gothic (the first being Dreamland released in 2008 on the same label as this) and apparently a number of the songs were written in response to Carpenters son being diagnosed with autism. I’m not totally sure what his reaction is to the diagnosis as apart from one song (“Boy from Black Mountain”) the lyrics don’t give any clues.
Musically the album is completely outside my comfort zone and visits areas I’ve never had a particular fondness or affinity with.
Primarily it’s an album that mixes up Bluegrass, a bit of Country, a bit of old time music and a bit of folk. It’s a skilfully put together set of songs that are played well (if you think you’ve heard Carpenter’s name before check out the back of Swans last album as he contributed some trumpet to it), arranged well and written well. But ultimately you would have to be a fan of the genres I’ve mentioned to really want to listen to it repeatedly. I’ve probably heard it over ten times now and while I can appreciate the qualities it has in terms of song writing and production it’s not something that resonates with me enough to think I would ever pick it off a shelf and decide to give it a listen again. However you could probably do a whole lot worse than at least check some samples of the tracks on sites like Amazon or CD Universe to make your own mind up.
3 out of 5 (based on its quality of workmanship rather than its appeal to a listener)