CLUTCH STAY THE COURSE WITH STRANGE COUSINS
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 2:00pm by Dale Croverdale
Clutch fans have become somewhat accustomed to expecting the unexpected from the band. So, with Strange Cousins from the West, they must certainly be wondering what the surprise is gonna be this time. Well, oddly enough, what’s most shocking about Strange Cousins is the fact that Neil Fallon & Co. have decided to stay the course, continuing to deliver the same sort of clean and direct blues-rock bludgeoning they began to dabble in with 2005’s excellent Robot Hive/Exodus and 2007’s From Beale Street to Oblivion. As much as Robot Hive was a neck-snapping departure from Blast Tyrant, it’s been weird to watch the band stay on this stylistic path for three entire records; one almost could be forgiven for expecting that this new disc would find Clutch heading into some new direction.
Nonetheless, Strange Cousins is anything but a demonstration of a band running in place. The nuance and intelligence that Fallon applies to such supposedly “simple” music is in full effect. While the song called “Motherless Child” that opens the disc could easily have been a chunked-up version of the old spiritual, Clutch turns it into a brand-new blues standard, dripping with groove and grime, and finishing off with a tasty, wah-drenched guitar solo that even Billie Holiday would have stepped back from the mic to gawk at. Bookending the album is “Sleestack Lightning,” a tune that similarly upends Howlin’ Wolf’s original bit of essential blues, reimagining it as a sly and greasy plate of southern-fried boogie-rock.
In between those two bits of blues-revisionism, Strange Cousins finds Clutch refining the edges of their sound. Cuts like “Also Ha Cambiado” and “The Amazing Kreskin” are pretty odd birds, packed full of noodly notes, preacher-man vocals, skanky bass lines and fluid tempo changes, giving Strange Cousins a bit of a jam-rock vibe in places. That vibe, however, is more than diluted by the powerful one-two punch that closes out the first third of the album. The barreling strength of “50,000 Unstoppable Watts” (which contains the weirdest anthemic chant ever in the form of “anthrax, ham radio, and liquor”) and the ominous thud of “Abraham Lincoln” combine to be the strongest ten minutes on Strange Cousins, putting some of the disc’s more sprawling moments into perspective.
(four out of five horns)
-DC
SWINE FLU SWINE FLU SWINE FLU SWINE FLU SWINE FLU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ll be picking this one up
Forgot to change my name back
Haha… busted. You do a good Juggalo impression though; if I hadn’t seen this little slip-up, I’d have bought it.
Yeah I figured it would give it away if I left it anyway, no self-respecting Juggalo would listen to Clutch
There’s no such thing as a self-respecting Juggalo.
only the freaks have all the answers
What an awesome, awesome band. I’ve been listening to this for about a week straight, with only the occasional break to listen to Elephant Riders (you know, to mix it up a bit).
LOVE “Struck Down” & “Algo Ha Cambiado.” So groovy.
Blast Tyrant was and is still my favorite Clutch record.
Same here, but everything they’ve released in recent years has been almost on par with Blast Tyrant, so I can’t complain.
Out of all the Clutch records, this one has made the least impression on me. I definitely gotta give it another listen. It’s probably a grower
if this keeps on with Beale street then i am down. that record was bluesy and great
This is my album of the year, hands down. Clutch are consistently brilliant, and while it’s kind of a shame to lose the Hammond/harmonica, the album definitely doesn’t suffer from it. It’s not quite as bluesy as Beale Street, but it’s definitely a Clutch album.
I do have to say, though… I never saw Robot Hive/Exodus as a “neck-snapping departure from Blast Tyrant” so much as a natural evolution of their sound. It’s nowhere near as jarring as the difference between Transnational Speedway League and their self-titled album, or the difference between the S/T and Elephant Riders.
After having listened to it, I don’t like it as much as Beale Street or Elephant Riders. The songs sort of blend together, without any one in particular standing out. It’s not a bad album at all, but it’s not as unique, song-wise, as their previous stuff.
You can get an extra track “Metroliner Special” free at their website http://www.pro-rock.com
Thanks for the free track. Didn’t know about that one!
Overall, the album is great. Love “Struck Down”, “50,000 Unstoppable Watts”, and “Let a Poor Man Be”. Not sure why everyone is infatuated with “Abraham Lincoln” though. I usually skip that track.
hey now I’m a Juggalo and I love Clutch… much more than ICP for sure, but let it be known that there are Juggalos that listen to good metal!!! My friend and I are Juggalos but we love ISIS, Mastodon, Black Dahlia Murder, Skeletonwitch, Neurosis, etc….
It doesn’t mean that I don’t think that all of the ribbing done here at ICP’s expense isn’t totally hilarious though…
HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH you actually enjoy those bands, and yet you worship a stupid fucking novelty like ICP? Stick to the mall, and stay out of metal.
It’s a good album. Not their best, but has some good tracks, particularly Struck Down, 50,000 Unstoppable Watts and Abraham Lincoln.
Feels like a grower as well. I mean, I wasn’t blown away by Beale St at first, but now think it’s one of their strongest.
Saw Clutch a few weeks ago, with the Bakerton Group (=Clutch minus vocals) opening. Awesome, awesome bands that both groove like a motherfucker. They’re the Meters of metal.
Favorites so far: the title track and Abraham Lincoln. But that might change once I’ve listened to it a few more times.
As much as I liked Beale Street, I thought it was a little too much of a straight ahead blues/roadhouse record (Clutch in my opinion are a nearly impossible to better as a blues-influenced metal band, but when they tip too far into blues there are better artists).
I think they’re really taken what they started on Beale Street and hit their groove with it on Strange Cousins tho, with more of the Blast Tyrant style hooks and imagery, and some of the sound from their earlier albums.
Fucking love it :)
Great article on Clutch and their new album- i read it at indiepit.com.
http://blog.indiepit.com/2009/07/27/clutch-guitarist-says-drt-lawsuit-is-being-resolved/
Way too much “dad rock” going on here, just go to a show you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Men in the 50’s sporting a BLS t-shirt trying to relive their glory years w/ a financed Harley parked outside.
As much as I love these guys they haven’t put anything remotely interesting since Elephant Riders. On the other-hand, The Bakerton Group stuff is pretty cool. I suggest you check it out.
“Strange Cousins” isn’t as good as their last few albums but it’s stlll far better than just about anything else. If the chorus of “Watts” doesn’t stick in your head with a near psychotic frequency then you’re just not a Clutch fan and you should go back to your Myley Cyrus or Hannah Montana collection. The intro to Abraham Lincoln is equally catchy and I find myself playing it over and over in my head when I can’t hear the real thing. “Watts” and “Lincoln” make the album worth buying even if every other song were a stinker which of course they are not!