Pink Mountaintops

A spongy dew of Pabst damping his beard, Vancouver's Stephen McBean makes a puerile, halfhearted pass at the confessional intimacy of lo-fi country and Iron & Wine's bedroom mobiles via his band's self-titled long player. As its namesake implies, this loose outfit aspires to jocose insinuation and infatuation with sex, with McBean persevering as a conflicted enough hipster nympho.

But as the only source of carnal candlelight inside Pink Mountaintops' idle boondocks of pattering drums and subdued space rock guitar, McBean's lyrics come off as unimaginatively dubious. "I fucked fire, I fucked rain. If I had my chance I'd get down again," he sings in a whimper reminiscent of Ween if its melon-slice-sized lobes were removed on "I [Fuck] Mountains," possibly draining what little sensitized meaning is left in the expletive. "Sweet 69" is a painful ode to Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love?" and the Age of Aquarius intensified by maracas and a groupie rubbing out LL Cool J's "Doin' It." Concluding with a faux rendition of Joy Division's "Atmosphere," this band is like an obnoxiously drunken friend who just won't pass out; all would be forgiven upon awakening at three in the afternoon, until you discover that they documented the incident as an ironic indie record. -- Hunter Stephenson