Axis Of Evol

stephen mcbean has been in numerous groups over the last two decades. as a thirteen-year old, he played in a band called jerk ward, playing hardcore influenced by the neos, discharge, crucifix and whoever else was fast or the fastest. his other bands to date have been a straight out punk outfit, a crusty punk/metal band, and, most recently, a psych-tinged maximal rock group black mountain. with 'axis of evol', pink mountaintops second full-length record, mcbean has once again created something much greater than the sum of his influences. 'axis of evol' begins with a forboding spiritual called 'comas', the kind that mcbean and only a very few other songwriters of this generation could pull off. the record then almost immediately ramps up into a thumping, buzzing, blissful haze, at various parts sounding like the velvet underground or spacemen 3 or the jesus and mary chain circa 'psycho candy'. and at the end, the album then segues into a hypnotic, smog-like meditation called 'how we can get free'. throughout the record, mcbean sings about love and war, the love of war, and the war of love; on the body, on the mind and on the soul.