Review Summary: With their third studio album, "Howl", Black Rebel Motorcycle Club walk a dangerous line between earnestness, and imitation.
Everyone hates a poser. No matter where he is, he's
talking, acting, or imitating something he inevitably nothing
about, and he normally suffers the consequences; jeers,
insults, and being pointed out for the fraud he is. With their
third studio album, "Howl", Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
walk a dangerous line between earnestness, and imitation.
When the band gets it right, the results feel natural and
authentic, but when they get it wrong, it is enough to
warrant more than a few eye-rolls and sighs.
The first listen to Howl throws the listener for a loop.
Both of the pevious B.R.M.C. albums had similar s
hoe-gaze influences and heavy
The Jesus and Mary Chain
referrences, but with "Howl" Peter Hayes and co. turn a complete
180 on their previous sound. The opening song
"Shuffle Your Feet" sets the tone for the album with it's stomp
rhythm and acoustic guitar pulled straight out of Johnny Cash's
American recordings. From here there is no turning back. The
rest of the album never wavers from the gothic americana
established by "Shuffle Your Feet". It's here that the listener
must decide whether to continue listening, or to simply dismiss
the record as an overindulgent attemp to engage the band's
coutnry fantasies.
After an interesting, but ultimately dragging title track, we come to "Devil's Waitin'". It's here where B.R.M.C. walk the line (no pun intended) between sincerity and fabricated emotion.
Quote:
Out on the corner with cast iron blood
10,000 or more with hearts on the run
They say I might die and I may be cold
I may have no jesus, I may have no soul
In prison I hear there's time to be good
But the first thing you see is the last thing you should
Well I've seen the battle and I've seen the war
And the life in here is the life i've been told
Yeah I've seen the battle and I've seen the war
And the life out here is the life I've been sold
|
The first and second verse will either fill your eyes with tears, or have them rolling
toward the ceiling. For me...they rolled. (How many "wars" do you honestly think the
boys have seen?)
Now might seem like the time to give up and leave "Howl" to its americana
masterbation, but right after "Devil's Waitin'" comes the biggest surprise on the album.
"Ain't No Easy Ways" bursts onto your speakers like a harmonica driven crack of
lightening after the slow acoustic ballads of the three previous songs. The song sounds
as if it just crawled its way out of a smoke filled, southern bar. It's romping rhythm, slide
guitar, and honky tonk harmonica almost beg the song to come off as a shameless
imitation of a drunken country party tune, but strangely, the song is the most "real" of
anything on the album.
The trend is continued with three songs before coming to "Weight of The World" which
is where the album begins to drag. If B.R.M.C. had decided to keep the album short, and
ended with "Promise" the album could have been great, but the guys pull a move they
are now famous for; taking a good idea, and dragging it out much longer than they
should. The second half of the album fails to break the mold of semi-country mediocrity,
except for a track titled "Gospel Song". Unfortunately, the song only breaks the
mediocrity because of its faux gospel lyrics and atmosphere.
Quote:
I will walk with Jesus, till I cant go any more,
And I will stay with Jesus, till I can't go another mile,
And people will see all the good that's concealed,
And people must know, not to feel any sorrow,
Cos I will not stand by and watch you cry...
I will stay with Jesus, till I can't stay any more,
And I will stand with Jesus, till I can't take another stone,
And people will see all the good that's concealed,
And people will know, not to feel any sorrow,
Cos I will not stand by and watch you cry...
|
I hate to do it, but I'll have to quote pitchfork on this one, "
unplugging your guitar and cawing about Jesus doesn't make you country."
Howl wraps up with the songs "Sympathetic Noose" and "The Line". The latter again
follows the B.R.M.C. tradition of after dragging their albums on with more of the same,
blasts with with over seven minutes of it in one song.
Ultimately, "Howl" succeeds on the strengths of its first half, but fails to break into
greatness because of its bloated second half. It is up to the listener to decide whether or not the album is a simple imitation of the country and americana records the band appears so adores, or a genuine attempt to capture the heart and soul of the afore mentioned.
