Giant Sand - Blurry Blue Mountain

Giant Sand is a Tucson-based alt-country band led by Howe Gelb. In October, they released their new album, Blurry Blue Mountain, on Fire Records. Over the years their original name -- Giant Sandworm -- has been shortened, labels changed, and membership shifted.  And, one of those notable shifts happened when John Convertino and Joey Burns left the group for their more successful side project, Calexico.  However, since 2008's album, proVISION, the band's line-up has not changed.

Blurry Blue Mountain features newly written material as well as reworked songs from previous records. This album is a fusion of country, psychedelic rock, jazz, blues and more which has marked the alt-country movement since its inception. It opens with Gelb's rumination on age in "Fields of Green," and then moves into the piano-based ballad "Chunk of Coal." In "Monk Mountain," a cool psychedelic ode to Thelonius Monk, Gelb gives us some of the most penetrating guitar lines and provides the album with its strongest track. Later, Gelb falls into a countrified canter in the revisted "Lucky Star Love" (previously known as "Loving Cup" and "Blanket of Stars"). And on "Time Flies," Gelb creates a piano bar atmosphere and a Tom Waits-like persona. The rockabilly "Ride the Rail," the swamp boogie "Brand New Swamp Thing" and the raucous reappearing "Thin Line Man" break up the otherwise sleepy drone of the album.

Blurry Blue Mountain, although long and sometimes wearisome, is an enjoyable listen. And, even though, Gelb has purposefully excluded himself from the titles of "Godfather" or "Forefather" of the alt-country movement, it is easy to hear his nonconformity and eccentricity on Blurry Blue Mountain -- all of which helped to create the genre we know today.

Purchase Blurry Blue Mountain

Giant Sand - Monk's Mountain by The Big Beat

Giant Sand "Chunk Of Coal" by FIRE RECORDS