A glimpse at BRMC - Howl

[illusionofjoy]

The first two Black Rebel Motorcycle Club albums (aka: BRMC) were great walls of fuzzy electric guitar and heavily reverbed vocals. I loved them. So, when I heard that they were working on a new album, I was ready for more of the same.

Shame on me, it looks like. The third LP from the group, entitled Howl (which you can listen to all the way through via their MySpace page), is decidedly lacking in reverb and guitar fuzz. In fact, the band seems to have thrown out all of their Jesus & Mary Chain records and started listening to Ryan Adams, The Old 97's and Mirah. That's right - BRMC has become an alt-country band, except for the title cut and the piano-gospel of "Promise."

I don't begrudge a band the right and the need to evolve and experiment, but this is kind of a shock to the system. Their first two albums sounded so dark and angry and were just beautiful to my ears. Now they sound optimistic and almost uplifting at times. I've been double-checking the page to make sure that I'm actually listening to the new album by BRMC.

I don't dislike it, but I'm not sure that I love it either. This one is going to require a few listens before I make up my mind as to whether or not I'm taking a trip to the record store.