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This subtle ascension seems to come from an injection of soul. As Some Sweet Relief progresses, song structures lean toward the realm of spirituals and blues, and Balabanian's supine purr begins to feel more classic. You won't mistake Speck Mountain for a gospel group, but it's fair to say that, at least during the album's second half, they sound more like Spiritualized than Mazzy Star. Take the phasey organ of the aching "Backslider", which seems ghostwritten by Sonic Boom, or the slow croon of its partner track "Backsliding", whose staircase-climb has a distinct Jason Pierce tint circa "Shine a Light". It all leads to another sharp peak, "Twinlines", whose simple chorus-- "Oh, how long," delivered in a pretty Balabanian moan-- belongs distinctly to this band...there's no law that says mellowness can't reach as high as energy-- especially when, as with Speck Mountain, it's permanently aimed towards the sky.--Marc Masters, Pitchfork

Labels: Pitchfork, Speck Mountain

Speck Mounatin--Chicagoan's second helping of superior dream-pop.
If, as some reckon, a full-blown shoegazing revival is imminent, Speck Mountain have plenty going for them. In fact, Marie-Claire Balabanian's lonesome vocals, the languid pacing and fuzzy, opiated atmosphere their songs generate make them the closest thing there’s been to Mazzy Star for a long time. Though Balabanian and partner Karl Briedrick prefer to call what they do "ambient soul", what really matters is that they do it beautifully. Curtain-raiser "Shame On The Soul's" lightly-fingered tambourine, churchy organ swells and shards of acid-etched guitar instantly set the dreamy mood. Never straying far thereafter, it all makes for a heavily addictive, comfortably numbing kind of experience.—Peter Kane

Labels: Q, Speck Mountain

Speck Mountain core members Karl Briedrick (guitar) and Marie-Claire Balabanian (vocals) call their sound "ambient soul." The "soul" bit is no empty boast; their echoey shimmer has the ghostly quality of mist on the bayou...Balabanian intones fetchingly, like Patti Smith in slowmo.--Phil Sutcliffe

Labels: MOJO, Speck Mountain

Today’s featured selection, chosen by Morning Show host John Richards, is “Some Sweet Relief” by Speck Mountain from the 2009 album Some Sweet Relief on Carrot Top Records. Speck Mountain consciously avoids the extremes of shoegaze and folk, instead cherry-picking each school’s finest qualities and bolting them together with the sincerity and richness of Motor City soul, creating oscillating texture grounded in human truths and softening reality’s sharp corners with warmth and sonic space...they will send you searching for your headphones, closing your eyes and sinking into the floor. Some sweet relief indeed.

Labels: KEXP, Speck Mountain

Word Magazine
Speck Mountain-Wherein alt.country square dances with psychedelic gospel
Musical collision could just be the last refuge of the indolent scoundrel, yet occasionally something genuinely thrilling can squeeze out between the cracks of genre paving stones so willfully tossed around. Speck Mountain’s Karl Briedrick and Marie-Claire Balabanian achieve an absorbing alchemy on their second album, compiling country, gospel, shoegazing, ambient and psychedelic sounds into what we could foolishly call a sonic Battenberg. In spirit and mood, these nine careful, sighing, unfolding tracks may on the surface call to mind Cat Power (Backsliding), Throwing Muses (the title track), Dusty In Memphis (I Feel Eternal) or mid-period Lambchop (Twinlines); but it’s the repetition of lethargic chords, beaten out over sleepy and minimal percussion, that delivers the music into a more spectral plane. Balabanian’s tired and pained voice is their trump card and sparse, whispered musical arrangement allows her the space to glide, a torch singer in an emotional power cut. —Eamonn Forde

Labels: Speck Mountain, Word Magazine

While the duo's debut release, Summer Above, has more of an innocent vibe, their newest album, Some Sweet Relief is more textured and mysterious than its predecessor and begs to be unpacked...The resulting album is dreamy, impressionistic, and ambient. Like sunlight shining through a gauzy curtain, Balabanian's rich vocals are simultaneously hazy, distant and piercing.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103215670

Labels: NPR, Speck Mountain