Infinite Light

We Say...

Review by Adria Lisle

Much like Athens, Georgia's much-ballyhooed Elephant 6 collective, Black Mountain Army is altering the soundscape of Vancouver, Canada one band at a time. The army's newest progeny, Lightning Dust, serves as the antithesis of psych-rock band (and critics' darlings) Black Mountain: here, Black Mountain alumni-turned Lightning Dust balladeers Amber Webber and Joshua Wells dial back the sturm und drang (or, more appropriately, wail und fuzz) for a restrained, yet no less impassioned delivery.

Infinite Light, Lightning Dust's second album, delves into a folksy, Americana song bag that's sewn from scraps of the Band's Music From Big Pink, the Felice Brothers' Tonight at the Arizona, and the Geraldine Fibbers' Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home. Webber's warble sounds part Carla Bozulich, part Kasey Chambers, while Wells channels Lee Hazlewood and a dash of Johnny Cash. Stripped of most electric instrumentation, they duet on "Honest Man," which could be an outtake from Silver Jews' Tanglewood Numbers, then play on western stereotypes for "Waiting on the Sun to Rise," an echo-laden country waltz. They're no retro act, however: Jarring percussions and synthesizers occasionally disrupt the reverie, as on the galloping "I Knew," "Never Seen," and "The Times."

Lightning Dust sparkles most brightly on "Wondering What Everyone Knows," a skyrocketing, Mazzy Star-esque pop number, and on "History," which free-associates elements drawn from the ethos of the Black Mountain Army amidst a soaring, piano-driven sing-a-long. "We'll throw our wishes to the sea/Each time we swim we're reminded of our history/And we'll sing about the mountain, ‘cause the mountain's what surrounds us," Webber croons on the latter, which, though it clocks in at less than three minutes, magically expands into an epic song.