JANUARY 2009 - EYE - REVIEW

It’s a rare rock album that makes use of a choir from start to finish; that texture is usually reserved for epiphanies. Already-revered local collective Bruce Peninsula’s debut is full of such epic, transcendent moments, like the thundering peaks of “Shutters” and “Steamroller,” and both are anchored by producer/drummer Leon Taheny with his intricate, though still-powerful, skin-beating. But even a force as majestic as thunder gets old after 41 minutes (“Satisfied” is only a minute long, but the titular chant gets annoying much faster than that), and unlike the peaks — i.e. the vigorously hollered choruses led by former EYE WEEKLY scribe and current dynamic frontman Neil Haverty — A Mountain Is A Mouth’s valleys are unremarkable by comparison. The intros to “Inside/Outside” and “Shutters” are flat and dull, and the incongruously oblique lyrics don’t help. If this is folk music, shouldn’t it be more comprehensible to us commoners?