The Mountain

iTunes Review

The Heartless Bastards’ singer/songwriter/guitar player Erika Wennerstrom has conquered yet another formerly towering obstacle to her sex — Led Zeppelin — and blues/rock may never be the same. In the instrumental breakdown of the menacing rocker, “Nothing Seems the Same,” her guitar breakdown recalls Jimmy Page’s more ravaging moments. Vocally, her vulnerable bombast and mystical cry in the equally rumbling, “Early In The Morning” recall Robert Plant. But Zep heft and rock chick wailer are only half her bag. The other flavor here is "acoustic guitar playing folksinger" that in tunes like the delicate “Wide Awake,” and “So Quiet,” favors a plunking banjo and meandering fiddle. Joining the two halves of her musical vision is quite a feat, and one that Wennerstrom navigates with astonishing style and passion. Her ever-changing trio provides crash or twang leaving the band’s big gun, Wennerstrom’s do-it-all voice, front and center. In the haunting “Could Be So Happy” where she “ran over the hills,” to “see what tomorrow brings” she’s finally going “out to the sweet unknown,” from which The Mountain has already arisen.