I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.
---Allen Ginsberg ‘Howl’
The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, mainstays of the San Francisco rock scene took the name for their 3rd album released in 2005, from this defining poem of the beat generation written by fellow San Franciscan Allen Ginsberg. Like the beat generations characteristic pattern of poetry, BRMC have also had a distinguishable sound with wide ranging influences from the neo psychedelic Brian Jonestown Massacre to the guitar fuzz of Jesus and Mary chain. However in this album it all takes a backseat to the Americana, folk and country influences as the trio trades in their distortion pedals for acoustic slide guitars. BRMC’s songs have always had a bluesy undertone to them but in this album they delve deeper into the delta blues and gospel sound by employing organs, harmonicas and tambourines making the album sound grander than it really is. While the remaining so called ‘garage rock revivalists’ still play brash, aggressive rock with fuzz driven feedback and amateurish song structures, BRMC have taken a different path, one not frequently visited by modern day rock bands. A stripped down sound with arrangements that favor the lighter, more acoustic side of their music, this album would not seem out of place in the 60’s. While a departure for the band who are famous for albums filled with drug induced feedback and rock n’ roll anthems, its still an earnest and compelling record chalk full of gospel Americana and muscular country blues along with lyrics about Jesus and the government that would make Dylan proud.
Songs like ‘Promise’ and ‘Complicated Situation’ written in the vein of 60’s Dylan folk and ‘Devil’s Waitin’ a southern ballad tribute to the styling of Johnny Cash shows the band embracing its roots, while the most popular song off the album ‘Shuffle Your Feet’ begins with an acapella gospel choir and leads into a honky tonk stomp. The title track with its heavy church organ acts as a divine melancholy mood piece for the album. ‘Ain’t No Easy Way’ is another raucous rocker full of acoustic guitars, harmonica solos and foot stomping country rock rhythm while ‘Weight of the World’ with its Oasis like harmonies is a low key gem in the bands repertoire. Fans of the bands first two albums might not appreciate the bands dive in this new musical spectrum but in time this album will be appreciated as a sincere effort by the band to reinvent their sound.
---Allen Ginsberg ‘Howl’
The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, mainstays of the San Francisco rock scene took the name for their 3rd album released in 2005, from this defining poem of the beat generation written by fellow San Franciscan Allen Ginsberg. Like the beat generations characteristic pattern of poetry, BRMC have also had a distinguishable sound with wide ranging influences from the neo psychedelic Brian Jonestown Massacre to the guitar fuzz of Jesus and Mary chain. However in this album it all takes a backseat to the Americana, folk and country influences as the trio trades in their distortion pedals for acoustic slide guitars. BRMC’s songs have always had a bluesy undertone to them but in this album they delve deeper into the delta blues and gospel sound by employing organs, harmonicas and tambourines making the album sound grander than it really is. While the remaining so called ‘garage rock revivalists’ still play brash, aggressive rock with fuzz driven feedback and amateurish song structures, BRMC have taken a different path, one not frequently visited by modern day rock bands. A stripped down sound with arrangements that favor the lighter, more acoustic side of their music, this album would not seem out of place in the 60’s. While a departure for the band who are famous for albums filled with drug induced feedback and rock n’ roll anthems, its still an earnest and compelling record chalk full of gospel Americana and muscular country blues along with lyrics about Jesus and the government that would make Dylan proud.
Songs like ‘Promise’ and ‘Complicated Situation’ written in the vein of 60’s Dylan folk and ‘Devil’s Waitin’ a southern ballad tribute to the styling of Johnny Cash shows the band embracing its roots, while the most popular song off the album ‘Shuffle Your Feet’ begins with an acapella gospel choir and leads into a honky tonk stomp. The title track with its heavy church organ acts as a divine melancholy mood piece for the album. ‘Ain’t No Easy Way’ is another raucous rocker full of acoustic guitars, harmonica solos and foot stomping country rock rhythm while ‘Weight of the World’ with its Oasis like harmonies is a low key gem in the bands repertoire. Fans of the bands first two albums might not appreciate the bands dive in this new musical spectrum but in time this album will be appreciated as a sincere effort by the band to reinvent their sound.
