Mount Moriah are commonly identified as a collaboration between longtime friends/bandmates/business partners Heather McEntire and Jenks Miller, who have played in French pop band Un Deux Trois together, and run the indispensible Chapel Hill label Holidays for Quince. "Bright Light", the second release from their upcoming sophomore full-length and Merge debut Miracle Temple, shows the duo in fine form.

1.(2011) Mount Moriah - Mount Moriah
Genre: Indie Folk
Quality: 320 kbps
Tracklist:
01 - Only Way Out.mp3
02 - Social Wedding Rings.mp3
03 - Plane.mp3
04 - Lament.mp3
05 - Old Gowns.mp3
06 - The Reckoning.mp3
07 - We Don't Need Much.mp3
08 - Hail, Lightning.mp3

REVIEW:
That voice is the ideal conduit for McEntire's lyrics-- or perhaps the lyrics are the ideal vehicle for her voice. She writes in a direct style that manages to incorporate interesting turns of phrase, knotty combinations of words, and evocative imagery. "Social Wedding Rings" deftly dissects circle-of-friends politics, neither lambasting nor condoning those interrelationships but finding a finer balance between fond remembrance and bitter regret. Even singing about hanging out in Colorado Springs and listening to Buffy Sainte-Marie, she's makes the song specific to her own experience yet sympathetic enough to apply to any listener. On "Lament", McEntire slyly subverts love-song conventions to write a declaration of love's opposite: "A mouthful of bees couldn't stop me from whisperin', 'I don't love you,'" she sings with a steeliness in her phrasing, right before the handclaps come in. Her repulsion is just as intense and wild as the attraction and excitement of first love.
Dominated by shuffling drums, slow southern rock guitar licks, and pedal steel, the music on Mount Moriah is unobtrusive and reserved-- at times almost too much so-- but there are some fine flourishes in these songs, which feature members of Megafaun, St. Vincent, and Bowerbirds. The strings on "Old Gowns" quiver and sob, as if allowing McEntire to maintain her composure, and Miller's steady, chiming guitar theme on "Lament" gives her something to lean on. The music isn't as distinctive as the singer, but the band's mission is to support, not compete with, her performance. The accompaniment is understated by necessity, because what else can you do when the album's finest moment is McEntire singing wordlessly and eloquently on "Old Gowns", sustaining a single syllable to show the full, gorgeous grain of her voice?
By Stephen M. Deusne

2.(2013) Mount Moriah - Miracle Temple
Genre: Indie Folk
Quality: 320 kbps
Tracklist:
01 - Younger Days.mp3
02 - Bright Light.mp3
03 - Eureka Springs.mp3
04 - I Built a Town.mp3
05 - White Sands.mp3
06 - Connecticut to Carolina.mp3
07 - Rosemary.mp3
08 - Swannanoa.mp3
09 - Miracle Temple Holiness.mp3
10 - Union Street Bridge.mp3
11 - Those Girls.mp3
12 - Telling the Hour.mp3

REVIEW:
McEntire chews her words with an enunciative license learned from old Vic Chesnutt albums, while he lays down some licks that are showy only in their tonal precision, his lower notes suggesting a subtle grinding of gears. But it’s the rhythm section that turns Mount Moriah’s country into country soul, their tight timekeeping giving the song its backbone, its drive for introspection and epiphany. As McEntire’s lyrics imply, giving in to the darkness may be the only way to survive it, but the song’s irrepressible momentum makes sure she sees the bright light on the other side.
By Stephen M. Deusner