Mountain - Masters of War Review
Posted by Jesse Coy on 11.02.2007
They told us about that "Mississippi Queen." Now they're back with a new release. Find out how high this Mountain goes.
Mountain Masters of War
2007
Big Rack Records
For me, this one is one strange cookie. As any good reviewer should do in this day and age, I poked around and did some research here. I was unfamiliar with Mountain. They were a hard rocking band in the late 60’s who broke up in the early 70’s, who occasionally over the years have issued material (one album in the mid-80’s and one in the mid-90’s), and who have apparently reformed in recent years. Their best-known song, “Mississippi Queen,” has been covered by a number of acts, including Molly Hatchet, Ted Nugent, W.A.S.P., and Ozzy Osbourne.
The cover version that Ozzy did on his Under Cover album actually features Mountain guitarist and vocalist Leslie West, who performs the guitar solo. To return the favor, perhaps, Ozzy appears with Leslie on the title track of Masters of War, the two doing a debut on that number. It’s a great track, along with other great tunes like “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” and “Highway 61 Revisisted.”
Now someone out there is reading this saying… what a minute! Those songs all sound REALLY familiar. Didn’t someone else do those puppies? Aren’t they Bob Dylan songs? Yes, they are. Hence the “strange cookie” comment I made earlier. This album is an album entirely comprised of Bob Dylan covers. Here’s where further strangeness for this particular reviewer kicks in. I only own one Bob Dylan album. It’s not as though I don’t recognize many of these tunes. It’s just odd hearing them here without the originals as a reference.
Bob Dylan probably ranks as the most covered band in my CD collection. The Beatles might come in as a close second, but Bob wins the prize. So it might be funny if I begin to like the cover versions of his songs better than the originals. And while I was going to use this clever line as my lead-in… here’s what happens when Bob Dylan tunes are brought atop a Mountain… I didn’t want to give away the twist of this review so soon.
So again, as someone unfamiliar with Mountain, and vaguely familiar with these Dylan tracks (12 in all), someone not inundated in all that is Bob… what insight can I offer? If I were to say who Leslie reminds me of vocal-wise, it might be ex-Soundgarden and ex-Audioslave’s Chris Cornell, only much better in the sense of being more expansive, soulful, and powerful when necessary. The covers themselves are definitely heavy. Warren Haynes of Gov’t Mule (another band I’m unfamiliar with, though have often heard of) also serves as a special guest on this one, playing guitar on “Serve Somebody” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’.”
The 411: It’s always hard to gage how often I might be prone to throw a cover album into the CD player for a listen. This is good stuff, though, from an act who played the original Woodstock, and who Ozzy claims on the liner notes of Under Cover (specifically referring to Leslie), “was the first guy to get me Snow Blind”… you can’t get better credentials than that.
