The Breeders - Mountain Battles(4AD, 2008)7.5 out of 10Singing "I can feel it!" over and over again, Kim Deal hurtles tumbling with her band out of the speakers on "Overglazed." Two minutes of this excited psychedelic revelry pass, evoking the Who as much as Throwing Muses, and then the Breeders land in the semi-glorious, scatterbrained mud that is the remainder of
Mountain Battles. It is the fourth Breeders album, the third in a row featuring Kim's sister Kelley on vocals and guitar, and only the second in a row featuring their current rhythm section lineup. This is to say: the Breeders in 1990 are not the same band as this one, but Kim's singular, weird approach to song and arrangement both — more hazy, sparse and seductive than that of Black Francis and his Pixies, while carrying over some of that band's alien-rock edge — causes this to matter little.Every song can be described with different terms, none of them necessarily sounding inherently appealing, but trust me: if you ever enjoyed unpretentiously strange rock music in the '90s, maybe if you've ever used the term "cough syrupy" to describe a record you like, ... how about if you liked any of the Breeders' albums before this one? pretty simple criterion, that one ... then
Mountain Battles is an '08 landmark not to miss.Here I go for trying on some of the more notable tracks, with nonetheless gusto. "Bang On" quietly follows the grabby jubilation of "Overglazed" with a muted major hook, a ploddy, muffled beat and Kim half-yelping, a bit strangled: "I love NO one/ And no one loves ME!" (See, that one's a personal favorite of mine.) On "German Studies," the Deal sisters intone, hilariously, poor pronunciation of Deustch phrases over a rough and ragged 2/4 backing, something like (but not really) a hardcore band slowed to half-speed. "Spark" eschews the percussion completely for, well, a "cough syrupy" dirge that vacillates between a soft lull and a softly distorted screech. (Another favorite.) "Istanbul" drops dubby melodica onto a bizarre ode, possibly, to its namesake; immediately following is "Walk It Off," a sunny college rock throwback sounding as if it were flown in from another album and time. This is the logic of
Mountain Battles.We dip into 13 different pools of Deal, altogether. The closing title track is a particularly inviting soak, luxuriating for nearly four minutes — a significant plot of real estate on this mountainside — in some droning organ and Kim's elegantly crooned poetry. Have I been giving this album enough credit? Have I taken it seriously enough? That's the dilemma that sets
Mountain Battles apart from their previous albums, even the relatively irreverent
Title TK; it's their least grounded record, their most head-in-clouds, feet-in-quicksand. For that, it might be their slightest effort — certainly not for lack of taste, charm, style and chutzpah. On the flip side,
Mountain Battles might be the most fun you can have with the Breeders for all of these reasons. They're still just as good as ever, essentially, and I remain confident that the Deal sisters' world is one that will likely always be worth exploring.-Spencer Owen
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