Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway
From the deep, dark swamps of Tallahassee, Florida comes a mountain of smoke-enveloped doom. In fact, it comes in the form of the lumbering Smoke Mountain trio and their recently released three-song, self-titled EP.
The powerful trio at the heart of this behemoth is firm believers in the “family first” approach to things. I say such because vocalist Sarah Pitt and guitarist Lee Pitt are married, while drummer Brian Pitt is Lee’s brother. The family that jams together… doom bands together, ha!
What they manage to incorporate into this eponymously titled effort is a syrupy haze of fuzzened stoner doom. It’s pummeling, pulverizing, and plastered with gloom and massive, resonating riffs. Those riffs drive each track with their slowly churning, downtuned empowering, but that’s just the start of all that’s going on here.
The drumming Brian lays down is a kit-punishing barrage of tempo-precise strikes capable of registering on a Richter Scale. Meanwhile, Lee delivers massive, downtuned tones and riffs from guitars that seem powered by pure Iommi-ian essence. Resounding monoliths each and every one, they vibrate the very air with sullen severity.
The not-so-secret weapon of Smoke Mountain is the vocalizer taking point, Sarah. Her vocals are simultaneously sultry and throaty, yet somber and bellowing all at the same time. They blend with the music of these three cuts, “Violent Night“, “Smoke Mountain“, and “Demon“… well, at times even soaring upon the ethereal undercurrent beneath them.
As the rise of female involvement in atmospheric doom and such genres continues to thrive in underground music, Smoke Mountain stakes their claim here. The band is off to a nicely respectable start with their self-titled ‘Smoke Mountain’ EP, which you can now stream via the Bandcamp embed below.
