Most rock bands, when they add a choir in the studio, do so when they want to get their gospel on, or convey a sense of something much larger than themselves. But when the rock band incorporates the choir into everything they do—on stage and off, and to the maximal effect heard here—the result feels less like some kind of spiritual graft than it does genuine uplift and magic.
Bruce Peninsula are a Toronto group whose membership swells to 12 whenever possible: a core rock quartet plus two percussionists and five choir members, with each element put to full use in each song atop often thundering percussion. There's a large debt to call-and-response traditional music from Aboriginal and African-American sources, far removed from polite Christian folk songs. Bruce Peninsula dig deep in the earth to craft something that sounds remarkably raw, fresh and new—not an easy task in a crowded field of modern folk artists aiming to juxtapose traditional and modern approaches.
Since their inception a few short years ago, Bruce Peninsula quickly built a reputation as one of Toronto's best live bands—a mixed blessing, as the studio is an entirely different setting. And yet they easily rise to the challenge, with the help of engineer Leon Taheny (Final Fantasy), managing to both capture their live energy and craft a recording with subtleties and intricacies that creates its own environment entirely. A Mountain is a Mouth may well be a Torontonian time capsule album, riding that city's continuing creative renaissance with a collective spirit that is at once triumphant, humble and joyful.