Review by Richie Pirone
For anyone who hasn’t heard of Clutch or hasn’t given the band a chance yet now is the time. On the band’s latest effort, From Beale Street To Oblivion, Clutch brings the rock as good as anyone in recent memory. From Beale Street will tap into the minds and hearts of rock lovers across the board – classic rockers, Southern rockers, stoner rockers, and every other type in between. The album is far from short of riffs and originality having plenty of Hammond B3 courtesy organ laced throughout for good measure courtesy of Mick Shauer.
Neil Fallon & Co. waste no time bringing the riffs and socially conscious lyrics with the album’s opener “You Can’t Stop Progress.” The outro to the song features some shining drum fills from drummer, Jean-Paul Gaster, showing that Clutch is far from limited in their musical abilities. “Power Player” is one of the strongest tunes on From Beale Street and is sure to become a crowd favorite with it’s chorus of “I’m not giving you attitude, I just want another drink.”
“The Devil & Me” is the first song on From Beale Street that really shows some of the influences that Clutch is drawing from on this record. In the song’s main riff it is easy to hear the Lynyrd Skynyrd and then the break down brings in the Black Sabbath-esque riff followed by a B3 laced section that reeks of Southern Gospel. These themes run throughout the album but what is so refreshing about it is that it’s something new and different, in a good way. It’s become too few and too far between that we get a true taste of something like this in music anymore.
“Child Of The City” is more reminiscent of what fans had already come to expect from Clutch, which is ok because it’s not like they were a bad band before this record, they’re just better now. “Electric Worry” is another song that has got the Southern influence written all over it with a dash of Delta blues. It would be easy to picture two old men sitting on their porch in Louisiana singing the opening vocal line, which manages to make the song just a little bit cooler. It also has one of the coolest choruses on the record. It’s simple, to the point, yet you’ll definitely walk away singing “bang, bang, bang, vamanos,vamanos” along with Neil Fallon.
It’s hard to really complain about From Beale Street because it’s just so fresh and so different and really something that hasn’t been done before. If I had to make one complaint it would be that I don’t know when the band is coming to town so I can hear them play this record live because they have leapfrogged to near the top of my list of bands to see play. If this record doesn’t launch Clutch’s career to a high level I don’t think anything will and that would be a shame because we really may have the next classic rock album on our hands here.