Stephen McBean has always made music for the open road. Black Mountain’s lofty mix of proto-metal, prog rock and regal folk suggested late-night drives in the fall, big guitars battling back the crisp autumn air. Meanwhile, Pink Mountaintops—his assumed solo act that’s wrangled together various full bands of collaborators during the last decade—scored perfect spring treks with the top down, as McBean delivered exclamatory anthems about love, friendship and sex. But if you value your own safety, don’t listen to Get Back, the first Pink Mountaintops record in five years, while behind the wheel—or for that matter, while doing anything that requires specific and steady motor skills.
The album’s first half is consistent enough, offering a bright-eyed romp through McBean’s record collection. Opener “Ambulance City” dances in a way that's reminiscent of Television, taut drums pushing at the backs of anxious, steely guitars, while McBean finds a path between Phil Spector and Mudhoney during “Through All the Worry” and dips into messy Springsteen love for “Sell Your Soul.” So the wreck, panic, and disaster set in around “North Hollywood Microwaves", during the song's soul-torturing second half. There's a seesaw of dipping saxophone and diving guitar bouncing between a rubbery bassline and repeated strings of non-sequiturs—and then the rapping starts: “I’ve seen rows of cocks/ And it’s looking like corn/ Waving in the wind, I’ve sworn,” rhymes Annie Hardy, frontwoman of Giant Drag and an occasional and unfortunate emcee.
She continues to shoot through a surreal sequence of images and admissions concerning “Ooey-gooey cum”—where it goes, where it comes from, how many gallons one can manage, how it gave her AIDS, how she now gets it from bears, and, of course, whether she prefers polar or black bears. “Cum talk, what the fuck?” she exclaims toward the end over John Wahl’s screaming, Zorn-style saxophone, and as a listener, it’s hard not to ask the same thing.
The trouble isn’t that McBean thought it best to include a rap verse on Get Back, or even that the only woman to appear on this album sets herself up as an automatic punchline. (J Mascis plays guitar on Get Back—can he rap about dicks, too?) And considering his inclusive stylistic approach, the rap's presence isn’t that surprising, really: while 2009’s Outside Love was a grand, romantic rock record with hooks as arching as the Smiths', earlier Pink Mountaintops material (particularly the project’s 2004 self-titled debut) experimented with beat machines, oblong structures, and sudden interruptions as though playfulness were half the point of the project. Why not add a few rap verses?
But “North Hollywood Microwaves” epitomizes the nostalgia-based indecision that generally plagues Get Back. This is McBean’s aging record, where he gazes at the golden years of his youth with wanderlust. He questions how he ever made it out alive, wishes to revisit those high-flying times, and asks if modern youth locked into “computerized segregation” will end up okay, too. He posits that 1987, when he would have been a late teenager, was “The second summer of love”, referencing the joy of doing dirty deeds along the kid-cruising strip of his midsize Canadian hometown. And he praises those old pals who persevered when the mayhem went bad: “I could understand how you’d rather split than take my hand,” he sings during one of the album’s best moment, with chiming bells and clanging guitars adding electricity to the sudden solemnity.
The sentiments are there, but McBean essentially handles these questions by flipping through his record collection. Whether it’s the lyrical references to Eddie Cochran, the Boss, and Richard Hell, or the way these songs sound like his handwritten copies of tunes by the Go-Betweens, Television, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and the Amboy Dukes, there’s the overwhelming sense that McBean is mining the past for comfort in the uncertain present. “North Hollywood Microwaves”, an out-of-nowhere aberration in a relatively wide-ranging oeuvre, is McBean’s admission that he’s not sure if he’s even comfortable with his own leaden nostalgia. It’s not just that the rap is bad (it’s horrible, actually)—it’s that the edgy, subversive decision spotlights the antique stitches and seams that hold Get Back together, both conceptually and musically.
I’ve wondered how Get Back might be different without “North Hollywood Microwaves,” or at least without its rapped appendix. Doesn’t it seem unfair, after all, that a largely enjoyable rock ’n’ roll album with 10 songs should be dismissed because of one track’s blindsiding goof? It does, and there’s little doubt that, with no “North Hollywood Microwaves”, Get Back would be pushed toward the safe bounds of mediocrity. But even after a long spell without much of a sound from McBean, I’m still intrigued by his work, or at least the possibilities of what he might continue to make. If Get Back were just yet another decent, mid-tempo rock record, which it mostly is, it would be safe to assume that McBean has told us his story and taken his music to its alternately heaviest and most radiant places.
But Get Back still finds McBean trying to tap into something risky and surprising, even if the results are the sometimes-egregious misstep of a mid-40s rock musician obsessed with the letdown of aging. Still, the adventure—bear semen notwithstanding—makes me want to stick around long enough to give McBean at least one more chance for a road trip.
