Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Artist: Clutch
Label: Weathermaker Music Records
Release date: 15.03.2013
Length: 44:16
Rating: 5/5
Some bands sell nothing but illusion, fake aesthetics and precious little substance, but there are still titans out there who swear by the essence. With soulful explosions they show and make the world feel exactly as much of themselves as they want to, not as much as the label establishment and the ever-undernourished, music-starved masses expect from them. Among the latter you can without a doubt count the Maryland rebels, a gang of outcasts and beardos who found their center of gravity in the incredible Neil Fallon. Southern rock is dirty, rebellious and manly-rough, and after more than two decades of going their own way and playing spine-straight rock, they stand unshaken and firmly planted on those postulates even after ten records.
Time is a relative substance, and when you consider that quite a while (four years) has passed since the last record, the strange cousins from the West on the album Strange Cousins From The West, many would have expected the mellowing that creeps to the forefront with age. But Clutch once again decided to stick up the middle finger and do something completely their own. Earth Rocker is a return to the sonic patterns of the incredible Blast The Tyrant, and Fallon and his co-conspirators retreated once more to the basement home of producer wizard Machine to get a hard, compact sound. Don’t fix what ain’t broke, and the end result is, as befits the Clutch franchise, damn wild and thrilling! The recipe of dirty blues rock shines and seeps through every pore of this testosterone-soaked outpouring of genius, and instead of slowed-down melancholy, Clutch step on the gas from the first track and don’t let up till the end. Nine years after the blasted tyrants, they’ve had enough of the slow stuff, and Clutch aren’t rewriting their own epics but fighting new, thoroughly fresh sonic battles! Boozy blues, revolt, energy and full-blooded power prove that Neil Fallon and his unique style have very few rivals today, and fate was damn kind to him in picking the crew at his side, because Clutch are a band you can’t fault for a single thing, lyrically or sonically.
And that goes from the building intro right into the very core with the outstanding track Earth Rocker! Drums and bass and damn juicy guitars squirt out heart and sheer potency, and on this canvas, or rather this loom, the raspy voice of the exceptional orator Fallon pours hellishly cheeky and soaks into your flesh. Nothing is left to chance, and with your foot tapping and an ever-blissfuller smile on your lips, it turns out that rock, despite its venerable age, can still be fresh and alive! Crucial Velocity continues the tantric sonic fuck with exceptional sharpness and a dirty sound, and the final tuning by the great Machine adds to how much better the Clutch machine sounds. And in this scream of a chromed beast everything is thoroughly organic, so you won’t find a gram of electronics, cosmetics or shortcuts!
The moments of rapture just keep stacking up, and among the multiple eargasms the bluesy harmonica moments of inspiration on D.C. Sound Attack stand out. Besides the hairy guitar sound, you have to single out the rhythmic brilliance of the demigod Gaster behind the drums, who makes the dance imperative of this thundering tectonic moment of the year that much more outstanding! Gaster toys with skins and cymbals, weaves in cowbells and sends you into a state of utterly hypnotized enchantment. Unto The Breach kicks the steely composition into a higher gear again, and since the Clutch universe can’t stand being separated, the chromed bite is all the more a given. A pit stop at the ballad-tinged blues masterpiece Gone Cold conjures up behind your half-closed eyes images of swampy bayous, mist, and the smell of smoke and distilled manliness, the very thing that made me fall in love with this uncompromising world of cruel beauty on first listen. The road ahead is less soft, though. The Face and Book, Saddle & Go are true rock gems of redneck love for rock’n’roll, and on the altar, the sacrificial block of almighty noise, you’ll gladly bleed a few hectoliters of sweat and your own blood – this time in the name of the mighty Clutch, thanks to which the heart finally beats nicer and louder again! Cyborg Bette is the equivalent of AC/DC on steroids, Clutch have paved their own branch of the highway to Hell in their unmistakable way, and Route 666, my dears, runs straight through Germantown, Maryland! After Oh, Isabelle there’s only one last exclamation mark to add: that Clutch don’t hide behind sugar-coated scenery and never sneak in among the sheep disguised as Baa-ck Jon, but stay true to their wolfish instinct and fur, is added by the album’s last, wolfish rather than swan song, The Wolf Man Kindly Requests …
Ladies and gentlemen, reservations about this band and this record are not justified! Neither is any wavering faith in the fact that the beardos mean everything damn seriously! Despite 23 years on their shoulders, Clutch have tanned their hides so well that they blow away and sweep aside all such toothless nibblers with ease. The tool and weapon for dealing with competitors from the world of rock as well as the more metallized genres is just one – the organic blow of a hard, erect soul-member, which thanks to good muscle structure blows away 99% of the competition with the very first thrust. The remaining percent are brothers in conviction and musical potency, and it’s thanks to such titans that every so often I can revive my belief that miracles still happen, and so do outstanding records without a gram of fat on them! Clutch are the empirical proof of that, an eruptive gem of red-hot passion, and the record Earth Rocker is a new, tenth gospel through which contact with the rock heavens is possible once more!
Line-up
Neil Fallon – vocals, guitar, keyboards
Tim Sult – guitar
Dan Maines – bass
Jean-Paul Gaster –drums
Production
Machine & Clutch
Track list
- Earth Rocker
- Crucial Velocity
- Mr. Freedom
- D.C. Sound Attack!
- Unto the Breach
- Gone Cold
- The Face
- Book, Saddle & Go
- Cyborg Bette
- Oh, Isabella
- The Wolf Man Kindly Requests …
