Pink Mountaintops: Outside Love

A valentine “for the hunters and the hunted / and the wild and the hoods and the thieves,” Outside Love—in its portrayal of a world where the honesty of lust is as beautiful as the purest of hearts—feels like gospel music for non-believers. A bit more raucous and a hell of a lot more cohesive than 2006’s Axis of Evol, Outside Love finds frontman Stephen McBean (who also leads Black Mountain) continuing to rewrite the 1960s, with much improved results. The Phil Spector-meets-Pink Floyd vibe remains, though the hippie-esque feel of such songs as “The Gayest Of Sunbeams” is matched by the fuzzed-out bliss of album opener “Axis: Thrones Of Love” and the follow-up track “Execution.” It’s as if McBean realized that the worlds that he inhabits in both Pink Mountaintops and the more hard-rocking Black Mountain—his primary songwriting outlet—are not mutually exclusive (and watch for the sly Sabbath reference in the album’s title track). It’s a realization to be thankful for.