This Blinding Light: Mountains EP
This Blinding Light – Mountains
Self-Released (2017)
By Dutch Savage
Acclaimed grunge producer Jack Endino worked with Seattle’s This Blinding Light to create a riff-pop, sludge-grunge, rock ‘n roll type of EP and it does not disappoint. Catchy riffs and college-radio vocals smash themselves together, creating a kind of surprising heaviness. If drawing comparisons to other notables from the Emerald City, Mountains is not quite “Melvins-heavy,” but definitely offers a thickness (zip) that fans of Pacific Northwest sounds will find appealing.
Delicious bass sounds are prominent on tracks like “Tree Of life” and “Heaven,” the latter sounding like a lost gem from the first Sub Pop golden era. Meanwhile album closer “Eyes” is fuzzy as fuck; the hypnotic vocals are dynamic and layered, while guitars glide alongside somewhere in outer space
Each of the five songs here are reminiscent of distant but familiar 1990s-era indie pop music, but this time we see it wrapped in a post-“alternative” apocalyptic wasteland. This band might be huge if it were 25 years ago. – (8/10)
A version of this review also appeared in Northern California publication Savage Henry.