I admit it; I’m a bad lad. I don’t always read the press release until I’ve listened to the music so I got quite a shock when the vocal came in after the brief introduction to the first song ‘I Met The Devil On The Bus’. ‘Jesus’, (pardon the pun please) I thought, ‘the singer sounds exactly like the guy from The Butterflies of Love. How uncanny’. Oops. He is. For those of you who are thinking, ‘Who the hell are the Butterflies of Love?’ (I am going to the bad fire as my granny always used to say with these initially unintentional religious puns), this U.S. band released three rather special albums How To Know…, The New Patient and Famous Problems between 1999 and 2007. Although these releases didn’t exactly set the heather on fire in terms of sales figures or chart positions they gained the band a healthy cult following, drawn in by their classy, understated and lovely songs, especially on singles such as ‘Rob A Bank’ and the quirky attempt to establish their own dance craze, ‘The Mutilation’. All three albums are well worth checking out but for the moment I’ll concentrate on the job at hand. Ladies and gentleman, I give you The Mountain Movers. The sleeve, with its slightly surreal paintings by main man Daniel Greene (think Hieronymus Bosch reinterpreted by Daniel Johnson and you’re getting close) suggests that this may be a more lo-fi album than those recorded by Greene’s former band, while the imagery and title may suggest some fire and brimstone Old Testament outpourings. However, even upon an initial first listen We’ve Walked In Hell… showcases a very plush sound, utilising a wide range of instruments including saxophones, cello, trumpet, violin and piano. The lyrics deal with religion, life, love, death and drinking, delivered in Greene’s distinctive voice and each song is short, sweet and succinct.
Opener, ‘I Met The Devil On A Bus’ is very uplifting, a suave and scuffed song driven by the simplest of rhythms and a jubilant piano line augmented by some nice brass. ‘The Last Hope’ poses the question “how many hopes could there be left?” as the song is propelled along on a tight rhythm, piano and stabs of brass. There’s a nice, soulful feeling to The Mountain Movers in the song structures, in the way the instruments can propel the songs in a simple, uncluttered way then soar and sweep as required.
‘Not Quite Yet’ carries this on. It’s like Dexy’s Midnight Runners without a manifesto. It combines a lovely brass motif with the simplest of song structures that has me tapping my feet and grinning like a loon. ‘This Man Is Not Dead’ has a funereal pace; it’s a gentle, mournful elegy to the passing of someone who has carved his own gravestone, having faced up to the fact that he is both mortal and immortal. It’s a beautifully realised song with some wonderful lyrics too:
He believed in heaven
And he believed in ghosts too
But he had common sense too
He knew that one-day
This would all be through
And what’s left are some flowers and bones.
This man is not dead
That’s what the gravestone said.
The song considers the ways in which we face up to death and the concept of remembrance without being morbid. It’s a heartbreakingly lovely, even uplifting song.
‘Bomb Shelter’ is a more up tempo, bouncier song built up on a lithe keyboard over which Greene tells of hiding from God “In a bomb shelter built for two” before emerging, not to a post-apocalyptic scenario, but “a jungle of wonderful sights”. It’s a snappy, cool song. ‘The Devil Is Alive’ is slower paced, employing a pedal steel guitar to give this elegant, gentle lament a country tinge. Greene’s voice sounds utterly wracked, almost faltering as he delivers lines such as
She spoke to me
She said
You’ll find God after dark
But the Devil, oh yeah the Devil
The Devil is alive.
The song builds up and drops off in intensity before building up again with some superb imagery and lovely violin. It switches between a restrained elegance and noisier passages without ever becoming overblown.
‘This Afterlife’ has some gorgeous instrumentation and a classy chorus while ‘What The Devil Wants The Devil Takes’ upbeat soul-pop belies a darker lyric where “The Devil saw I was weak / He pulled me aside”. It’s another infectiously catchy song delivered in an understated fashion. ‘Just A Few’ develops a stark, mournful atmosphere but retains a sense of hope, both in the sweet melodic chorus and in lines such as “There’s a burst of colour flashing down / Changing the colours of the ground” and a sublime guitar break. ‘Leave A Light On’ is a drinking song that has a broken-down-at-heel regretful feel tempered by another lovely tune.
‘Lost’ is another gentle, reflective tune, full of plaintive guitar and organ joined at the climax by strings. The final song ‘The Devil Always Wins’ combines acoustic guitar, pedal steel, piano and bass in a cracked country song with Greene’s voice sounding fragile and resigned.
The Mountain Movers combine musical licks and lyrical gravitas with a real lightness of touch. The album introduces shades of dark but always with the light reflecting in offering hope and the chance of joy. Greene’s lyrics are not the fire and brimstone of Johnny Cash or early Nick Cave, nor is his view of religion as a former Divinity scholar (Yes, I did read the press release in the end), a simplistic one. Instead he exams religion in the light of everyday life in a complex, confusing world where there are no easy answers. In Greene’s worldview, as espoused on We’ve Walked In Hell…, the world is not divided up between the polar positions of good and evil but encompasses many different views, beliefs and ways of living. The end result is a superb, gorgeous and strange record. If you loved The Butterflies of Love you’ll fall in love with The Mountain Movers. Even if you haven’t heard of Greene’s previous group, this is a great album in its own right. Greene tells us that “The Devil always wins” in this album’s final words. If the Devil really does have the best tunes then he has won but The Mountain Movers’ souls remain intact.