Friday, April 4, 2008

Album Review - The Black Crowes

The Black Crowes - Warpaint [Silver Arrow; 3/03/2008]

It's been seven years since we last heard from the 90's rock and roll collective. I guess the Robinson brothers got sick of releasing solo albums that close to no one heard so probably thought it was a good idea to get the band back together. Following up on 2001's Lions, the crowes deliver us Warpaint, a cruisy bluesy rock and roll affair with an almost even ratio of soft to hard tracks.

"Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution" gets their hiatus off to a good start (also the first single) with a laid back but rocking feel, make sure you keep an eye out for the background piano parts. Already the band makes their song craft seem effortless. "Evergreen" an early highlight displays the band at their catchy best. Stirring the track list up a bit, we get handed the grandiose of "Oh Josephine" the long and drawn out ballad that gets better after every listen and the southern twang of "Locust Street". "Movin On Down the Line" picks up where "Evergreen" left off with the hazy like guitar picking of Rich with Chris chanting "It's alright sister, It's alright brother" repeatedly over the top, delivering yet another comfortably catchy rock tune.

From then on we get a similar pattern, rock song then softer song. Apart from the very fun but odd "God's Got It" the 3 minute 12 bar blues ode to god? I don't know if I've been hanging out in the wrong circles but nobody seems to be talking about the band and their return whatsoever. Even though there is no real strong material present on disc number 7, there is still alot of great stuff to wade through, the record may lack cohesion through track list arrangment but it's great to see the band hasn't lost it even if it strays from keeping itself in focus from time to time. It's always exciting listening to this band as any other writer would say they are not of this time.

Sean

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hello. This post is likeable, and your blog is very interesting, congratulations :-). I will add in my blogroll =). If possible gives a last there on my blog, it is about the Notebook, I hope you enjoy. The address is http://notebooks-brasil.blogspot.com. A hug.