Photo courtesy DecorporatedBeen tuned down so long it feels like up: after so many so-called “stoner” bands doing bald-guy riffs with fat-guy grace, Vancouver's Black Mountain offer actual physical relief—a cold mouthful of water to wash down a long night's worth of muck. They have so naturally and comfortably absorbed the true language of psychedelia that it wouldn't even matter if they're personally on nothing stronger than lemon drops and ginger ale: this is a drug band's drug band, smart about the mysteries that keep Black Sabbath and the Velvet Underground creepy and cool even after 40 years, and the Black Mountain LP on Jagjaguwar glides wisely along every degree of the psych parabola. “Modern Music” puts lazy vocals over a Velvet Underground shuffle, single “Druganaut” (also available as a remix) is a loopy quote from Can's “Halleluwa” until it gets a second wind and goes right for “War Pigs,” Lou Reed's back and waitin' for “No Satisfaction” (which even has one of those percussive one-finger piano parts John Cale played so he could order and drink Pernod during songs), and then “Faulty Times” calls down the curtain with a sighing Fillmore West-style auld-lang-syne gospel-organ goodbye: “In spite of all your laws!” they're singing, guy and girl mixed into mono choir, and then pop! Lights out; everybody exhale. They played a Long Beach house party in April, and they will be opening for Coldplay this weekend, a colossal philosophical disconnect like when Public Enemy opened for U2, which is probably where Coldplay got the idea.
BLACK MOUNTAIN WITH COLDPLAY AT VERIZON WIRELESS AMPHITHEATRE, 8808 IRVINE CENTER DR., IRVINE, (949) 855-8096. SAT.-SUN., 7:30 P.M. $31-$66. ALL AGES.
