Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains- 's/t'

As one half of dance punks Death From Above 1979 Sebastien Grainger split his attention between pummelling the drums and guttural screams about his ‘Romantic Rights’. Now he returns with his eponymous solo project. Where Jesse F. Keeler embraced the dance element of DFA1979 with MSTRKRFT Grainger is carrying on the rock mantle. Less hardcore than Grainger’s past The Mountains make big and honest driving rock. It’s good to begin with but over the albums the twelve tracks do tend to slip into formulaic territory. For every soulful groove like ‘By Cover Of Night’ there is a forgettable slice of nothing such as ‘Love Is Not A Contest’. This leads to the record being tiring and difficult to embrace, lo-fi production and a repetitive nature don’t help either.

6/10

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Introducing... Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains

Death From Above 1979: they came they saw and they conquered in a flurry of sweat and blood leaving an amazing album in their wake. Jesse F. Keeler went on to form the electro vowel haters MSTRKRFT and take the dance floor elements of DFA 1979 and take them into their natural Ed Banger, Kitsune direction. Sebastien Grainger however has been suspiciously quiet. Apart from a guest vocal on Does It Offend You? Yeah!’s ‘Lets Make Out’ we’ve heard nothing from the DFA sticksman in over two and a half years.

Until now. Sebastien Grainger and The Mountains is the new vehicle for the man and it’s a return to fine form. Less aggressive than DFA and the Does It Offend You material The Mountains is a straight up rock record: big choruses, lots of passion and a mixture of lo-fi scratchy recordings and big big pop tunes. It takes the mainstream essence of the old stuff and makes a contemporary sound out of it. It’s still as gloriously jagged and eclectic but somehow cleaner and more mainstream than ever.

The self titled album is available through Saddle Creek records from this week (October 21st). There is not a confirmed UK release date or any live dates yet but you hope that is just a matter of time. There will no doubt be a huge appetite for this material as we can all agree Death From Above fans have unfinished business.

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