Mountain

Bob Weir - Blue Mountain (2016) {Columbia-Legacy 88985366982}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 304 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 122 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 161 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2016 Roar / TRI / Columbia / Legacy / Sony Music | 88985366982
Rock / Folk Rock / Blues Rock / Country Rock

Bob Weir never stopped making music but he did back away from his solo career after Heaven Help the Fool, a misbegotten 1978 effort that found the Grateful Dead guitarist attempting to dabble in the sun-splashed surfaces of SoCal soft rock. After that, he retreated to the boogying Bobby & the Midnites, a side project that was abandoned after the Dead scored a hit in 1987 with In the Dark, then after the death of Jerry Garcia, he wandered through several jam bands, settling on RatDog as a vehicle for whatever songs he had. All of this is to say that when 2016's Blue Mountain is called Weir's best album since his 1972 debut Ace – and it is, without question – there simply isn't much competition.

This superb collection of acid-influenced guitar rock originally appeared in 1970 and has languished in underserved obscurity ever since. Produced in LA by legendary engineer Bill Halverson (Crosby, Stills & Nash, Cream, the Grateful Dead), it's heavily imbued with West Coast influences and features superb musical interplay throughout. The band supported acts including Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd, but proved sadly short-lived. In 2007 Blue Mountain Eagle was reissued on CD.

Frequently classified as the first album by the group Mountain, which was named after it, Leslie West's initial solo album featured bass/keyboard player Felix Pappalardi, who also produced it and co-wrote eight of its 11 songs, and drummer N.D. Smart II. (This trio did, indeed, tour under the name Mountain shortly after the album's release, even performing at Woodstock, though Smart was replaced by Corky Laing and Steve Knight was added as keyboard player for the formal recording debut of the group, Mountain Climbing!, released in February 1970.) Pappalardi had been Cream's producer, and that power trio, as well as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, were the models for this rock set, which was dominated by West's throaty roar of a voice and inventive blues-rock guitar playing. Though West had led the Vagrants for years and cut a handful of singles with them, this was his first album release, and it made for an auspicious debut, instantly establishing him as a guitar hero and setting the style of Mountain's subsequent recordings.

The test of time has generally proven to be an easy pass for the high-impact, fantasy obsessed and dense symphonic landscapes of Rhapsody Of Fire, though recent shifts in this Italian symphonic powerhouse’s lineup and the ascendancy of several competitors have caused some to question if this is the same mighty band that brought such classics as Symphony Of Enchanted Lands and Power Of The Dragonflame into the world…