Heartless Bastards

Just over a year ago, Heartless Bastards frontchick Erica Wennerstrom packed her bags for Austin, leaving her hometown of Cincinnati behind after the dissolution of her 10-year relationship with Bastards bassist Mike Lamping. The change of scenery jolted Wenner-strom, who abandoned a crop of songs she'd written with Lamping and former Bastards drummer Kevin Vaughn (both of whom had been with her since their under-the-radar 2005 debut Stairs and Elevators) and hunkered down in her new apartment to write what would become The Mountain. The result is a new record comprising lonely, soul-searching confessionals and frantic cries for help interspersed with a few stoic anthems of independence, as if Wennerstrom herself is shouting down the thunderclouds overhead.