With a name like Howl, you'd expect the third album from San Francisco's Black Rebel Motorcycle Club to be their ugliest, heaviest statement yet. Think again. Kicking off with the spontaneous acoustic blues stomp of "Shuffle Your Feet", Howl starts as it means to go on: mellow, stoned, and sounding more authentically down-home than any band of sociopathic, narcosis-twisted punks have sounded since Primal Scream holed up in Memphis to write 1994's Give Out But Don't Give Up. "Still Suspicion Holds You Tight" and "Fault Line" crib from early Dylan, rolling drawled vocals, finger-picked guitar and blasts of harmonica into brittle sneers of malcontent, while the sleepy "Promise" offers up a spaced-out, Spiritualized-style ballad embellished with sweet piano and sleepy brass. Meanwhile, as the titles might suggest, "Restless Sinner" and "Gospel Song" reach back still further into the annals of traditional Americana. What happened to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's rock'n'roll? They haven't lost it altogether, but on Howl they've consciously devolved their sound, and this stripped, mostly enjoyable blues record is testament to the virtue of taking a leaf out of the old rulebook ? Louis Pattison
In 2004, months after the release of their sophomore record Take Them On, On Your Own, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club was unceremoniously dropped by longtime label Virgin; around the same time, founding drummer Nick Vago slinked away from the group, purportedly incapable of handling the rigor of a major label publicity push (or of showing up to gigs on time). Since its inception, BRMC has seemed oddly well-primed for anticlimactic dissolution, but rather than slumping away from the stage, leather jackets retired to mothball-stocked closets, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club has opted to regroup and pilfer a new musical spectrum, this time tackling classic American blues, country, and gospel. The trio has traded in their pedals and sneers for slides and acoustics. Guitarist/vocalist Robert Turner has reverted back to his given name, Robert Levon Been (originally changed to distance Been from his father, Michael Been of 1980s rockers the Call). Vago is back, smiling peacefully. Dunked in the Mississippi, BRMC are reborn.
There may be something awkwardly rote about BRMC's sudden interest in capturing gothic country goo ("Fault Line" features an extended harmonica solo; T-Bone Burnett cops multiple gratis in the liner notes), but Howl is still considerably more compelling than the bellowing, Jesus and Mary Chain retreads the band formerly relied on. All the Oasis posturing and NME-drool puddles made it easy to forget that BRMC were actually born in blue-sky California, and their new album title, which groaningly salutes periodic San Francisco-resident Allen Ginsberg, gently reminds listeners of the band's scraggly American roots-- which is appropriate, given all the rising-south thievery BRMC is indulging here for the very first time. The snag is, heartless posturing is still heartless posturing, no matter how sharp the change of scenery: at its best, Howl twists slide guitar and acoustic strums into vaguely convincing neo-Band jams, and at its worst, it sounds like cartoon-Americana (shockingly, unplugging your guitar and cawing about Jesus doesn't make you country.) Still, it's that tension-- between classic BRMC bluster and squeaky Delta organics-- that makes Howl an unusually interesting record.
Howl is predominantly acoustic, but so sopped with fuzz and echo that it actually manages to sound much bigger than it is. BRMC have hinted at Jack White-ian fetishes before, but Howl is still a remarkable departure for the band, and their trademark druggy dirges are noticeably absent here. "Devil's Waitin'" (sort of embarrassingly) mines Johnny Cash's lyrical stash, all Jesus and prison, proclamations about life and the Devil growled over careful acoustic strums and tiny wisps of pedal steel. The song's closing coyote Howls-- bayed gently, with cactus-stuck, old west conviction-- give way to a three-man hum-along, and finally slip into a gospel vocal swell (even the echoes seem to scream "We're in church!") Lead single "Ain't No Easy Way" is jammed with raucous steel guitar riffs and harmonica canoodling, all country-rock stomp and barn dance fervor. BRMC's natural penchant for the loud and bombastic work well here; surprisingly, "Ain't No Easy Way" is a perfectly convincing throwdown, oddly free of awkward contrivances. Much of "Gospel Song" is whispered, slipping in and out of thick full-band buzz, plodding on and on but never actually landing anywhere particularly interesting; opener "Shuffle Your Feet" starts with an a capella "Time won't save our souls!" whine, before slipping into a handclapping, honky-tonk rhythm.
There might be a tiny hint of desperation fueling much of Howl, but ultimately the record is an oddly earnest experiment for BRMC, and once they learn to drop the weird, obligatory signifiers, their new direction may actually prove more fruitful than their last: Cramming together brash rock snottiness with meek country hollers is hardly uncharted territory (not that it matters), but BRMC's particular mash-up still makes for a strangely intriguing party.
-Amanda Petrusich, September 2, 2005
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