Tiger Mountain

Like people, music comes in many shapes and sizes. There’s fat bands and there’s skinny bands, there’s lightweights and there’s heavyweights. While some bands strive for huge, orchestral sounds, others are content with fuzzed out power chords that do little to shift the shape of music, but provide the perfect background to any and all keg parties, nights of heavy drinking, and those special times when cousin Randy comes to town.

Tiger Mountain (perhaps the best band name of the year) is that special band that treads the line of hard-hitting rock beats just enough to make their album enjoyable. Get Along Like A House On Fire picks up where Analog Heads Gone French left off, with hard-hitting, punchy songs that could be the perfect road trip companion.

As has been noted by others, there is a hint of vintage Stones, but while Tiger Mountain does nod to the past, there are moments when the past is all but gone. There’ some great phaser effects on "Century’s Gone," while "Good Lie Down" has some great throwback trumpet work, along with some smooth synth notes coating Jackson’s vocals. Conte’s ‘drumming’ is mainly him smashing the hell out of the snare, but in this band, they work. Leanne and Jackson alternate vocals and perhaps they alternate solos. These solos explode out of the songs in true vintage rock style.

"Superintendent #9" breaks into a typical rock out format, but at the end it takes a turn for the better by powering itself into a compressed outburst of early 90s Stone Temple Pilots proportions. It’s a quick piece of music and inattentive listeners could pass it off, but its these sporadic outbursts that somehow make this album a little more than another boring rock album.

Unfortunately, while the album is enjoyable, there is no stand out track that pushes the album into the ‘Holy Shit’ category. Tiger Mountain knows their music won’t change the world, and thankfully they don’t try to by attempting to create revolutionary anthems. Verse-chorus-verse will never die and Tiger Mountain exists to stoke the fire. They’re here to make you move and if they’re successful, then that in itself could make the world a little better.

For more info see tigermountain.tv