Mountain – Don’t Look Around: The Recordings 1969–1974
A Powerful 7CD Tribute to Leslie West and One of America’s Greatest Hard Rock Bands
This is a superb new release from Esoteric Recordings — a 7CD box set celebrating Mountain’s recordings from 1969 to 1974 titled Don’t Look Around – The Recordings 1969–1974.
If you love late-60s and early-70s American hard rock — the kind of music that sits alongside Cactus, Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly, and Steppenwolf in your collection — then this set is absolutely worth it.
But for me, the real heart of this release is Leslie West.
Leslie West – A Guitarist Who Didn’t Need Speed
Leslie West remains one of my favourite guitarists of all time.
What made him unique wasn’t speed or flashy technique. He didn’t need to play a thousand notes a minute to make an impact. Instead, he had tone, weight, and emotional power in every note he played.
He belongs in that same rare category as players like Billy Gibbons or Paul Kossoff — guitarists who could say more with a few notes than others could with an entire fretboard.
But Leslie West also had something else up his sleeve.
His voice.
He wasn’t just a great guitarist — he was also one of the finest rock vocalists of his era, capable of capturing blues, emotion, and raw human feeling in a way that perfectly mirrored his guitar playing.
You can hear the connection between voice and instrument — the guitar almost becomes another vocal line.
Inside the Box Set
Don’t Look Around – The Recordings 1969–1974 gathers together seven CDs covering Mountain’s key albums and recordings from their classic period.
The set includes:
- Mountain (Leslie West’s debut solo album, effectively the band’s starting point)
- Climbing! – the classic album featuring “Mississippi Queen”
- Flowers of Evil
- The Road Goes Ever On material
- Twin Peaks (the live double album)
- Avalanche (1974)
- Live recordings including Woodstock performances
The albums are remastered by Ben Wiseman at Broadlake Studios, and the sound is excellent — probably the best these recordings have sounded.
Also included is a substantial booklet, put together by Mark Powell and Vicky Powell, which tells the story of the band in detail. It includes recording information, musician credits, and fantastic photographs that help bring this era of the band to life.
This is the kind of thoughtful packaging that Esoteric Recordings consistently delivers.
Climbing! – A Hard Rock Landmark
Of course, Climbing! is the centrepiece of the Mountain catalogue.
It contains the band’s signature track:
“Mississippi Queen.”
Heavy, direct, and unforgettable, it remains one of the great proto-metal riffs of the early seventies.
But the album is much deeper than just one song. Tracks like “Nantucket Sleighride” and “Never in My Life” show the band’s mix of blues, power rock, and improvisation.
Stormy Monday – One of Mountain’s Greatest Performances
One of the highlights of this box set is a phenomenal live version of “Stormy Monday.”
Many of you might remember this performance from the legendary early-70s triple album The First Great Rock Festivals of the Seventies, which featured recordings from the Atlanta Pop Festival and the Isle of Wight.
The Mountain performance of “Stormy Monday” takes up almost an entire side of vinyl — around seventeen minutes of improvisation featuring:
- Incredible Hammond organ
- Leslie West’s powerful guitar tone
- Deep blues vocals
- A band fully locked in
It’s absolutely superb and one of the best live blues-rock performances of that era.
Nantucket Sleighride – Improvisational Brilliance
Another standout moment comes with the extended live versions of “Nantucket Sleighride.”
One version here runs around 17 minutes, while the Twin Peaks album includes a version that stretches beyond half an hour.
That may be pushing the limits slightly — I’ll be honest — but it also captures Mountain at their most adventurous and improvisational.
The interplay between Leslie West, Felix Pappalardi, and Corky Laing is phenomenal.
This is raw, exploratory rock music in the truest sense.
Woodstock – The Beginning of the Journey
The set also includes Mountain’s Woodstock performance, which is fascinating historically.
When they played Woodstock in 1969, very few people actually knew who they were. Yet the band delivered a powerful performance that helped establish their reputation almost overnight.
It’s a great reminder of how quickly things could change in that era.
Avalanche – When the Tide Was Turning
By the time Avalanche arrived in 1974, the musical landscape had shifted.
Hard rock was evolving rapidly — Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and the rising heavy metal movement were pushing the genre forward.
Mountain’s star had begun to fade slightly by this point, but there is still great material here.
It’s a fascinating closing chapter to this period of the band’s history.
I absolutely love this box set. If you’re already a Mountain fan, the remastering alone makes it worthwhile.
If you’re discovering them for the first time, this is the perfect gateway into one of America’s great hard rock bands.
Mountain were proto-metal pioneers, blending blues, hard rock, and improvisation with real emotional weight.
And at the centre of it all was Leslie West — a guitarist and singer who truly left his mark on rock history.
ORDER THE MOUNTAIN CD BOX SET HERE
Phil Aston | Now Spinning Magazine
