Mountain
Over The Top
(Floating World)
★★★

THE muscular US hard-rock outfit formed by bass player and former Cream collaborator Felix Pappalardi and larger than life guitar ace Leslie West in the late 1960s may never really have fully captured the imagination of audiences on this side of the Atlantic, although one of their finest creations, Nantucket Sleighride, was used as the signature tune of ITV’s long defunct politics show, Weekend World.

This splendid anthology captures the cream of Mountain’s relatively meagre recorded output from their short stint together in the early ’70s alongside a few tracks which were captured for posterity by the reformed band assembled by West and drummer Corky Laing a decade or more later. Don’t Look Around, Theme For An Imaginary Western and an epic near 20-minute live rendition of T-Bone Walker’s Stormy Monday are the best of an excellent bunch.