Album Review: Songs From Black Mountain by Live

Live finally settle down -- 15 years after their debut and ten years after the peak of their popularity -- into a comfortable groove with Songs from Black Mountain, their seventh album and first for Epic/Red Ink. The quartet embraces the change in labels as a fresh start, moving away from the faintly desperate attempts at hard rock and grand statements that plagued the group's work since Throwing Copper and easing into quieter sounds and modest ambitions. Not that Live's leader, Ed Kowalczyk, has abandoned his signature spiritual pursuits; nor has the band departed from its U2-fueled anthems -- but neither are nearly as heavy-handed in their attack as they have been in the past.

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