A mountain can signal escape, endurance, distance, or the hard fact of having nowhere else to go. Andrew Moore and Hooch give that ambiguity room on “Mountain”, their second album.
The London, Kentucky group treats Americana as a working form, sturdy enough for grievance, memory, bravado, and neighbourliness. This album review finds a record rooted in people playing together in real time, while its songs press against the divide between individual conviction and shared obligation.
Andrew Moore arrives at Mountain with pressure behind him. Andrew Moore and Hooch formed in 2022, and their 2024 debut, Artists of the Moon, has already brought award recognition.
The band is a five-piece led by Moore, a singer and pianist, with Logan Turner, Gabe Crockett, Matthew Skaggs, and Jeremiah True completing the cited line-up.
Moore wrote every lyric and composition, then placed those pieces in the hands of a band accustomed to the friction and response of a room.
The result feels less like a solitary diary and more like a Kentucky workshop, where a song is tested by the people who carry it through the night.
Nearly two years separated the debut from this follow-up. Producers Jason Groves, Justine Blazer, Nick Autry, and John Daly helped shape the release, while five studios hosted the sessions.
Daly’s co-producer credit and appearance on “Tyrant” may pull new listeners toward the record, but Moore uses celebrity as one colour inside a broader Americana account. Blues, country, rock, soul, and piano-led writing share the same frame.
The group recorded “Mountain” live, including work at Nashville’s Sound Stage Studios. That is the album’s central artistic wager. A live band record asks players to respond rather than stack parts, and asks the lead voice to inhabit a moment rather than hide behind endless correction.
For a group whose public identity rests on performance, the procedure is persuasive. Moore’s writing can meet the grain of the room, while the band has space to answer him.
“Tasmanian Devil” offers the clearest session detail. Drummer Matthew Skaggs suggested a chorus of vocals alone, then found percussion items in a studio closet, including a blast of air, to give the section a different edge.
It explains the album’s temperament. The group did not merely preserve a rehearsal. It sought surprise within shared performance, a decision that lets a practical suggestion become character.
The tracks highlighted by Moore establish Mountain’s moral range. “Tyrant,” featuring John Daly and Grammy-winning artist Dan Tyminski, began when Daly heard an early version and asked Moore to write with him.
Its video, starring Moore and Daly, received coverage from TMZ and Music Crowns. The prominent guests could have produced a novelty item.
Instead, the title points toward a song ready to confront authority and its damage. “Peace Love and Harmony (Live at the Record Shop)” moves elsewhere, carrying Moore’s call for kindness and an end to hatred.
The pairing works because peace without an adversary can feel decorative, while anger without a counterweight can become empty performance.
It recalls a Kentucky barn raising, a civic ritual in which a difficult structure is put up by many hands. “Mountain” promises ascent, but its lasting idea is interdependence.
A clearer public guide to the wider sequence could help less publicised moments gain equal attention. Still, Moore’s choice to set a plea for grace beside a song of confrontation gives the project its value. Fellowship, it suggests, does not arrive without an argument.
For listeners drawn to contemporary Americana with the heat of a working band, Mountain makes a persuasive case.
“Tyrant” carries a visible video story and recognisable guests, while “Peace Love and Harmony” suits community programming and live rooms.
The live construction gives the album a natural stage afterlife, fitting a group with dates extending through 2026.
“Mountain” asks to be measured by neither prominent collaborators nor award attention. Its deeper promise comes from Moore’s decision to write from lived experience, then let a full band make those experiences public.
After the climb, who is invited to share the view?
