Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Howl

Sincere, intimate, and very well-written, this album shows leaps and bounds of maturity on BRMC's part

Immediately, as soon as the cd begins you notice something different. No walls of sound from the guitar, no brooding drums, no sense of balls to the wall exuberance. Nothing but a stripped-down, gritty and almost humbling chorus of “Time won’t save our souls”for the first twenty seconds of the opener “Shuffle Your Feet.” As unbelievable as it is, BRMC has done quite the 180, and the scary thing is that it sounds good, really good. As awesome as these guys have been over the years (and really, their previous album Take Them On, On Your Own was a stellar achievement, even if it did go unheralded), most of the songs on this album stack up really well and even beat out most of their other songs. After the wonderfully spiritual “Shuffle Your Feet,” is the heartfelt sorrow of “Howl,” and on this particular song, for the first time, the lyrics are what really take the forefront which is great as most of the times previously the lyrics were essentially secondary. In this matter, BRMC has matured immensely, and the album is essentially packed with very powerful religious imagery from beginning to end. Another beautiful moment is the hymn-like ending of “Devil’s Waitin’” which sends chills through the body with the well-executed vocals. The key with this album is that BRMC does not over-extend themselves or really even get that complex in their songwriting, which is a definite plus. Instead, they focus on simplicity, and each song almost grows continuously out of the previous one, and by the end of the album it becomes a fully realized ideal. Other highlights include the blue-eyed soul of “Promise” which features another surprise, as the song is essentially built around the piano and horns back up the passionate vocals, and also the mid-tempo rocker of “Sympathetic Noose,” a song that builds very nicely over the course of the four minutes, and is one of the two songs that could even be remotely considered upbeat, and that’s mainly because of the overall dark tone of the album. Overall this is a very significant album, not only for BRMC but also for rock music in general. There have been many bands that have touched upon blues and gospel before, but none have done it recently, or to the dark and sincere extent that BRMC has on this particular album. There’s no posturing or sneering here, just pure, unfiltered gospel/spiritual rock, and it’s almost as if they’ve beaten the White Stripes at their own game. Highly recommended.

★★★★½