Mountain announce their arrival on the rock scene with a crash and a boom and a bang, so that many regard this as the band's finest hour and one of the Top Three hard rock albums of 1970 (a year pretty rich on HR classics by itself - Live At Leeds, Paranoid, Deep Purple In Rock... need I go on?) I'm pretty fond of it, myself: while Flowers Of Evil is certainly a better introduction to the band's unique sound and a little stronger on a song-for-song basis, Climbing! might easily make it judging by the freshness and the force alone. After all, who needed a wimpy wussy debut album in 1970, the year of hard rock par excellence?
Nobody, and that's why the record crashes into and out of your speakers with the powerful 'Mississippi Queen', the trademark Mountain tune and still the only 'radio classic' in the entire catalog of the band, as far as I know (here's one more chance to remind you that I never listen to the radio). Corky Laing introduces the song with his trusty cowbells, and Leslie breaks out a riff that's completely generic, I admit, but he lashes it out with such tremendous power as if he were pounding his poor guitar with a mallet. It's not 'heavy' in the Tony Iommi sense - which equates 'heavy' with 'low' rather than 'loud', but it's not just stupid loudness, either. It's more like the Hammer of the Gods, you understand: the God of Thunder coming down from the mountains and confessing his love to the Mississippi Queen. A short and verrry convincing confession, indeed. An all-time classic; the only complaint is that the song really overshadowed the rest of Mountain's output and so became a stone round their neck rather than just one of their worthy contributions.
So do not forget that there are eight more songs on the record - not all of them are equally good, of course, and some are even annoying, but anyway, a song never makes an entire album, be it 'Satisfaction' or 'Baby One More Time'. Climbing! does not have such an obvious division of the record into a Leslie part and a Felix part, as on some of the subsequent albums; still, it is evident that some of the songs bear a more psychedelic, hippie flavour, courtesy of Felix, while others lean towards the give-it-yer-all unsophisticated rip-roaring, courtesy of Leslie. Both ideally complement each other, of course. Leslie's contributions on here are mostly in the same vein as 'Queen' and often just as enjoyable: the level of energy on 'Never In My Life' is simply incredible, and don't miss the drumming - Corky Laing bashes like a real powerhouse, and he never misses a beat. Likewise, 'Sittin' On A Rainbow' is another fun riff-fest, with a little charming, almost childish, melody, complemented by the relentless tom-tom-tom-tom of our trusty drummer.
The only West tune I don't really like on here is the silly acoustic instrumental 'To My Friend'. Whatever friend it was, he certainly deserved something better; I take a guess that Leslie just didn't take enough care to write a real tune and shoved these three and a half minutes of acoustic improvisation on the record instead. Near the end he sometimes lets himself get carried away with some fast, engaging rhythms, but mostly he's just playing short flurries of meaningless notes that don't even come close to being 'atmospheric', let alone 'memorable'. And who needs an unatmospheric and an unmelodic instrumental? Not me, mister.
And Felix? I suppose it was his idea to cover Jack Bruce's 'Theme For An Imaginary Western' (although Leslie had been great friends with Bruce as well - he even formed a band with him later on! Didja know that?), and a clever idea it was. While Jack's own performance of it was excellent, Mountain carry it even higher, as the song is, quite contrary to its name, re-arranged as a heavy, droning-and-buzzing rocker with psychedelic lyrics (and vocals: it's quite easy to mistake Felix for Jack himself on that one). Leslie plays an excellent, tear-inducing solo that builds up to a tremendous climax, and anyway, I really needn't be praising the song, as it's obvious that 'Theme...' is Mountain's trademark number two after 'Mississippi Queen'. What a blast: to put the two greatest songs of their career at the very start of their debut album. Heh heh. Talk about overkill.
Other mini-wonders include 'For Yasgur's Farm', a dramatic, ear-shattering number with yet another tear-inducing chorus (I couldn't quite make out the lyrics, but I guess they're easy to guess judging by the song's name), and the pretty ditty 'Silver Paper' whose melody was later reworked for the far more superior 'One Last Cold Kiss'. Again, though, there are problems: the weird acoustic mantra 'The Laird' has never struck me as particularly captivating, as it's neither powerful nor catchy, on the contrary, it's quite annoying in its repetitiveness, and Felix whines on it like a poor little beaten boy. And 'Boys In The Band' sucks; a pretty lame way to close such a terrific album with a messy, uninspired 'rocker' with no interesting riffs at all. They go for a more melancholic, piano-based sound with more emphasis on mood and lyrics than melody, but end up heading nowhere. Me, I'd better hear an 'extended mix' of 'Mississippi Queen'... please?
So I'm not yet ready to praise the album with the highest possible score, you gotta understand me; it's simply not enough consistent for me. I hate it when a record picks me up and kicks me down - a pretty rude way to deal with a listener, let alone a poor honest reviewer. Nevertheless, I wouldn't hold a grudge against the Wimp and the Fat Guy: they did earn enough cherries on that one. The ex-Cream should have been proud.
