Me Climb Mountain - Option


Surprisingly earnest and earthy, the Northern California foursome Harvester
plays rootsy rock delivered by a singer (Sean Harrasser) who sounds a lot
like Mac MacCaughan of Superchunk. While nasty guitars and oblique
references to the Velvet Underground and the Chills keep Harvester out of
Son Volt territory, no one's likely to mistake the band's music for the
inspired kitsch proffered by acts like Beck and Southern Culture On the
Skids. But Harvester has a knack for both guitar and vocal hooks, and
their performance style delivers enough energy to overcome any doubts sown
by the bucolic agricultural images on the front and back covers of "Me
Climb Mountain." Harvester earns bonus points for gracing "Kahiltna
Strip" with a David Lindley-like fiddle part that would have worked just as
well on a Jackson Browne song circa 1974, and for making multiple
references to Moby Dick (most obviously on the closing song, "Pequod",
named for the Ahab's ship), as timeless, irreverent, funny, and brilliant a
novel as America has produced.