If Bon Iver's album, For Emma, Forever Ago, is the product of one man's introspective exile from human contact and civilization, the band's live music is something completely different. The songs now take on the hopeful timbre of a man who has digested and embraced the series of sad circumstances that sent him fleeing to a cabin in the cold Wisconsin wilderness. After ending two serious relationships, one personal and the other with his former......

How do you feel about rock? How about songs about The Hobbit? While Black Mountain don't play any obvious ones, they do play rock that's been compared to Tolkien-loving Led Zeppelin. The five British Columbians play thunderous psychedelic (some say stoner) rock that sometimes drops to a whisper, sometimes is toe-tapping, and sometimes is just heavy. And sometimes that's all in the same song, like the 8-minute "Tyrants". Vocals are shared by Steve McBean, who......