Mountain of Youth
Formed in the wake of a series of bands that explored everything from dark, heavy rock to polished, indie twang, Mountain of Youth—and its remarkable debut, Nowhere, NW—emerges as a sort of equilibrium state, balancing Hunter Morris’s breezy heartland and lo-fi garage influences with his ’70s singer/songwriter and ’90s grunge sensibilities. The songs are mature and reflective, reckoning with loneliness, regret, and mortality, and the performances are raw and vulnerable to match, with lean, muscular arrangements centered around Morris’s gritty guitars and riveting live vocal takes. Add it all up and you’ve got an honest, empathetic meditation on purpose and impermanence delivered by a keen observer of the human condition, one who’s only just begun to truly understand himself.