There are lots of weird and/or weird-sounding bands in town. Pinkish Black, Alan, Clear Acid. Nathan Brown! But Mountain Kid has to be among the weirdest. Based on the Fort Worth quartet’s new record, the double album The Realist (Alpha and Omega), the sound is definitely modern (as in “mod-rock,” as in “stuff The Edge plays”) but also has a few distinguishing quirks. In addition to a bunch of time changes, movements played in unison, and an overall epic vibe, Mountain Kid’s mostly Tool-esque tunes feature a poppy vulnerability. “Darkness on the Run” could be confused with a yacht-rock jam. Across a spacey and light backdrop (trés Alan Parsons Project), co-frontman Addison White does his best Christopher Cross-meets-Joseph Williams vocal impersonation (and that’s a high compliment) in the service of a brilliant repetitive, quickly rhyming chorus: “Always on the run, darkness on the ru-uuu-uuun / But never on the run from a loaded gun.”
“Amnesiawake” is another soft rocker, with its chugging, silken muted guitars juxtaposed against a bubbly melody, and “Feet First” has what could be considered a funky breakdown. Note: The three tracks are from the same album, Alpha. You won’t find any such levity on Omega.
“The Alpha,” said drummer Ethan Stone, “represents the lighter side of life, the beginning, while Omega highlights the chaos and insecurities that sometimes confuse us … . Both include a hope for something or someone more. The contrast is intended to portray life as both peaceful and beautiful as well as a struggle and conflict.”
Mountain Kid’s music is definitely ambitious. Only a few local bands, heck, a few bands in general, can pull off this kind of sweeping pop grandeur. Alan and Katsuk are the only two locals that I can think of now. And they’re certainly not bad company to keep.
The idea of a two-part album came together “incidentally,” Stone said.
Stone, White, co-frontman Lewis Wall, and bassist Rob Hine believed that putting out two complementary albums nearly simultaneously would “better portray the lyrics and their message.”
What message?
“Our lyrics,” Stone said, “can be interpreted in many different ways. The conceptual edge lies in different schools of thought for each member of the band, whether that be a lost love, a hope for something more in life, or philosophical talk about the way life presents itself to us in all its beauty.”
Recorded at the Benbrook home studio of producer Joe Burton, The Realist is Mountain Kid’s offering to the universe in return for a career in music, Stone said.
“It’s every musician’s dream to become well-known and a rockstar to some degree. We have those aspirations as well, though we are all realists. See what we did there? And we’re happy to be doing it as a serious hobby for now. … Eventually, though, we want to have the experience of a Mountain Kid national tour, and we hope that will bring about some exposure that could lead us to graduating from hobby status to job status.”
If, as the old proverb goes, every journey begins with a single step, then Mountain Kid’s potential trip across the States may begin Saturday at Lola’s Saloon. That’s when and where they’ll be joined onstage by Austin’s The Continuums and Fort Worth garage rockers War Party. Cover is $5-8.
Contact HearSay at hearsay@fwweekly.com.
