ARTIST: Mountain
TITLE: Nantucket Sleighride
YEAR RELEASED: 1971
CHART ACTION: #16 US, #43 UK
SINGLES: The Animal Trainer and the Toad (#76)
OTHER SONGS YOU MAY KNOW: Don’t Look Around, Nantucket Sleighride (To Owen Coffin)
LINEUP: Leslie West, Felix Pappalardi, Steve Knight, Corky Laing
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT: The follow-up release for this loud proto-metal band doesn’t have the high of “Mississippi Queen”, but it’s a better album through and through.
SOME WORDS, PHRASES AND CLAUSES ABOUT THIS RECORD: Roaring out of the gate with “Don’t Look Around”, Mountain starts its second album like their first. However, instead of being a disappointment after that blast, the band settles in and delivers pretty decent cuts.
The title track, an elegy to Owen Coffin, who was an unfortunate victim of the shipwreck of the whaler Essex (the Dollop did an episode about it, and Owen Chase, a survivor, wrote a fantastic account about it. Coffin volunteered himself so others may survive). It’s a creative and moving telling of the tale (up to the shipwreck) and Mountain’s best song.
The other tracks don’t devolve into snoozers like the previous record. Even with a darker subject (“Tired Angels” is dedicated to Jimi Hendrix), Mountain keeps it heavy for most of the record, as they should. Sadly, this is the last Mountain record worth anything, unless you just LOVE blustery long live versions. And by long, I mean side or two side long.
NOTES & MINUTIAE: The band had some co-writers. Felix Pappalardi’s wife, Gail Collins, wrote most of the lyrics, but Sue Palmer also contributed lyrics as well.
IS THERE A DELUXE VERSION: A single and a live track. Nothin’ special.
GRADE B+: This album has enough heavy tracks to make you eschew the compilation and grab this in total.