Spins: Jason Sinay • The Mountain
Jason Sinay
The Mountain
(Next Revolution)
Veteran guitarist and singer Jason Sinay expanded his recognition and audience by holding his own alongside revered Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell in The Dirty Knobs. Other notable sessions have ranged from work with pop legend Neil Diamond to alt-country singer-songwriter Tift Merritt. Sinay departed the Knobs following 2022’s External Combustion to focus on solo work, which has resulted in this ambitious double album that will surely delight fans of heady, jam-friendly roots rock a la the Grateful Dead.
The Mountain includes two discs that lean into distinct sides of Sinay’s musical personality. One CD features electric band arrangements of the album’s ten compositions, and a second disc features sparsely adorned acoustic versions that sound like an intimate live-on-the-radio session. Both are captivating. Choose rich band performances or song-focused acoustic confessionals depending on your listening environment and mood for the day.
Sonic touchstones include the Heartbreakers, the Dead, the Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Johnson. The Mountain stands tall among such lofty influences.
“It Was You” is a harmony-laden country rocker about making sense of a love gone wrong. “It’s not a song about enemies, it’s a cry for sanity,” sings Sinay with an amiable drawl. The verses drift along curtains of weeping pedal steel with a backbeat that suggests the intersection of desert rockers Calexico, Laurel Canyon country-pop, and the Heartbreakers. A pair of solos leads with the sharp sting of a Telecaster and follows with the warm saturation of a spark-throwing Les Paul.
The midtempo beat of the reflective “Play it Alone” resembles “You Don’t Know How it Feels” from Petty’s Wildflowers, decorated with pedal steel, meditative piano, mandolin, and an arid twang a la Gram Parsons. The song is a bittersweet yet resolved expression of the need to break away from familiar surroundings and once-nourishing relationships to find oneself, perhaps alluding to Sinay’s departure from his longstanding role in the Dirty Knobs. “Sorry that you feel that way,” sings Sinay sincerely to a former confidant.
Sinay confronts his selfishness and vanity on the ambling Bakersfield country-pop of “History,” but allows himself some grace. “That’s okay, I’m headed in the right direction,” he sings to a tolerant partner while on his way toward self-improvement. The song’s watery guitar solo recalls “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”
The shimmering strummer “Is it Over” questions the setting sun of a relationship, looking for reasons and culpability on both sides and wondering whether the end is really the end.
The gentle and evocative “Picture Perfect” is a heart-tugging ode of commitment to a lover characterized as a beloved “diamond in the rough.” With a deconstructed rhythmic foundation of hand percussion and sparkling mandolin, the song is reminiscent of the Faces at their rootsiest. A lyrical guitar solo follows Sinay’s amorous words as if to say “I love you” via a beautiful melody. With spiraling melodicism and intimate expressions, this song is among the most captivating entries in The Mountain’s acoustic set.
The jangling “High Plains Drifter” pivots between anthemic pop passages and restless tension. The song urges someone to confront their own inner shadows and self-deceit. “You are the master of your own disaster,” sings Sinay to a person who hopes “to be swifter than the man in the mirror.” The energy builds toward a skyscraping coda with rich harmonies, crashing chords, and swelling emotion that hew closer to the Who or the Heartbreakers’ “Straight into Darkness” than the traces of the Grateful Dead’s nimbly improvised melodies echoed elsewhere on songs like “Every Day Every Night” or waltz-time affirmation “One of the Few.” The embattled but resilient minor portrayed in the title cut, “The Mountain,” borrows an equal measure of sonic influence from the Band.
Joining Sinay are guitarist Bruce Watson and Doug Livingston, who add deft counterpoint to Sinay’s soulful playing on guitar and pedal steel, respectively. Bass is played by Mike Mennell or former Dirty Knobs bandmate Lance Morrison. The songs’ steady, straightforward rhythms are provided by drummer Herman Matthew or by former Dirty Knobs bandmate (and AC/DC veteran) Matt Laug. Phil Parlapiano elevates many songs with his rustic and gospel-infused keyboard work, as well as accordion and mandolin.
Despite hard-luck tales and midnight ruminations expressed in many of these songs, the cumulative, paradoxical effect of The Mountain is a sense of pocket euphoria created by the sublime sound of musical interplay, melody, and expressive, free-spirited soloing. Although the arrangements are often compact, these songs hold the promise to bloom into improvisational bliss in concert. For further evidence of the style, seek the recent digital release of Sinay’s spacious cover of Neil Young’s majestic but tragic “Cortez the Killer,” which would have fit nicely among the original material here. Like the best of his jam-band peers and forebears, Sinay’s guitar is sometimes a truer conduit for his emotions than his voice alone can provide. If there’s room in your heart and record collection for another thoughtful songwriter-slash-guitar guru, Sinay is up for the role. (jasonsinay.com)
– Jeff Elbel
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