Bassist Pat Reed of Columbus-based rock trio Mount Carmel says of his band's next move that "the future is uncertain at this point." What does seem certain for Reed and his band mates - younger brother Matt Reed on guitar and vocals, and Kevin Skubak on drums - is that there is a future. Mount Carmel, which has been offering up their blues-inflected rock and roll for about a year now, has already landed a distribution deal with the venerable Philadelphia indie imprint Siltbreeze, has an LP dropping in May and a series of gigs, including a showcase at SXSW, on the horizon.
When I recently had a chance to hang out with the band, they talked as much about football as music, and offset any "cool points" that might have been earned with a Captain Beefheart mention by also citing David Grisman's Bluegrass Reunion as a favorite. Refreshingly, scoring such points seems far from the minds of the members of Mount Carmel, whose retro-tinged blues rock occasionally flirts with psychedelic and has very little in common with most of what is trendy in underground rock right now. Despite the fact that many of their songs sound like tracks that might have come from a Nuggets compilation, these guys probably wouldn't quite have been at home during the garage rock revival that made waves eight or 10 years ago.
The band's sound is bound to garner lazy, if not entirely unfounded, comparisons to the Black Keys due to their geographic point of origin. Where the Keys are more indebted to fellow Fat Possum artists like T-Model Ford and Junior Kimbrough, Mount Carmel also owes a tip of the hat to the likes of Cream, Black Sabbath, and, when they really let themselves go, the heavier side of the Grateful Dead. With these influences in mind, it seems natural that the six tracks on the forthcoming mini LP were all recorded in just one day this summer at Columbus’s Musicol Studios. The immediacy of the one-day session that's in evidence on these recordings (made with the assistance of Columbus rock icon Mike “Rep” Hummel), mimics the immediacy of a live gig and gives each band member an equal chance to flex their musical muscles.
Matt Reed’s world-weary lyrics and vocal stylings seem to come from someone much older than his twenty-some years, and his guitar flits from blues to power chords to rock and sometimes, jazz-inflected noodling. Skubak mounts a relentlessly pounding attack on the skins, laying down a steady beat when necessary but also injecting some choice fills and entering into a musical dialogue with both bass and guitar when the time is right. Pat Reed's unconventional, but out of sight, style of bass is reminiscent of such greats as the Who’s John Entwistle, in that he often plays lead lines rather than the more standard and simplistic bass lines that we expect from purveyors of stripped-down blues rock. In regard to this observation, the bassist simply says, “I just picked it up about a year and a half ago, started playing with Matt, and that’s just what came out. I hadn’t really given it much thought.” I guess we’ll just chalk it up to good luck, then.
With all that's coming up for them this spring, Mount Carmel seems like a band that is genuinely enjoying themselves. “We just love playing right now. Hopefully, we’ll do another record and travel but, right now, we’re just playing shows, writing songs, and having fun” says Pat. To those that would criticize their sound as no more than a rote psychedelic-blues rehash, as some have, Mount Carmel has this message: “There’s a lot of great music out there. Find some you like and get with it.” Mount Carmel play Cleveland's Cranky's Manatee Pub tonight, February 26.
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