The Breeders Mountain Battles by: Thomas Mendelovitis Fri:23-May-08 Label: 4AD Year: 2008 WB rating 80 out of 100

More than any other feeling evoked on Mountain Battles, The Breeders transmit a sense of fun. After much-reported travails with drugs, alcohol and other-band politics – notably the now-defunct Pixies reformation, which saw a reigniting of the rocky relationship between Breeders leader Kim Deal and Frank Black – in 2008 the band seem happy just to be making music. As such, there is a playful, jammed aspect to each of the 13 tracks. Despite being recorded in part by one of the world’s most renowned producers in Steve Albini, there is a delightful looseness to the playing and recording often absent from many contemporary recordings. This suits the old-world (or at least 90s) feel of the record. While the band may be formed around Deal and her twin-sister Kelley, it is the sound of a group of people playing together. This could be an almost throwaway comment, but it is something that is all too increasingly rare. Perhaps this is Albini’s genius.

Album opener ‘Overglazed’ and follower ‘Bang On’, with their minimal lyrics and ragged but concise structures, could be energetic first session takes. This side of The Breeders is well-represented on Mountain Battles and culminates near the middle of the record with ‘German Studies’. The most Pixies-esque of the tracks, ‘German Studies’ is the sound of the distant past, and with this 90’s alternative sound finding a last gasp at album end in the almost pop-punk riff of The Tasties’ ‘It’s The Love’ it’s hard to contemplate any contemporary bands striving for a sound as organic as this. As indistinguishable as Brit Rock and Electro have become though, the lack of lustre and polish is, at times, a welcome change.

This joyous side to the album finds its other half in a more down-tempo mould. These two opposing moods make the album all the more rewarding. After the opening two tracks finish in a brisk four minutes, two slower, longer songs in ‘Night of Joy’ and ‘We’re Gonna Rise’ bring the listener completely under the record’s control. Unlike the faster songs, these tracks employ narrative in addition to the repeated vocal hooks. On ‘Night of Joy’ Deal intones: “can’t stop this wave of sorrow, follows, every mile that you go”, which slowly morphs into: “this night of joy, follows, oh, everywhere you go… come home, come home”. A metronomic tom pattern reinforces the grinding tedium of a lovers’ separation, one note of delicious vibrato in the solo echoing the titular night of joy – the simple theme of the song perfectly suited to the instrumentation. It’s one of Mountain Battles’ best moments, and one which is not easily trumped.

‘Istanbul’ is most striking in its experimentalism. A melismatic organ motif recurs in the left channel, while stabs of surf guitar in the right ear punctuate the clicking rhythm and upright bass. It could be some kind of Turkish jazz-lounge we’ve never heard before, if not for the shouted: “Where you going? To the city! Where you going? Istanbul”, which puts things ever further into the realm of the oddball. The ‘World music’ theme is continued with the album’s second cover, a lovely lo-fi rendition of Roberto Cantoral’s ‘Regalame Esta Noche’. The track showcases the fine guitar playing of the Deal sisters and in its similarity to the Tres Caballeros original it proves a fine homage.

There is a careless ease to Mountain Battles that always grounds it. As such, excursions into world or folk (‘Here No More’ could be a Lomax wax recording) styles never feel forced. The simple approach to the engineering of this album is supportive of that and it sounds as though Albini has loosened his grip a little in terms of effects. Seldom overbearing, if not uniformly excellent, Mountain Battles is a treat for exhausted ears.