Clutch
Strange cousins from the west

It's about time that some bands who have literally worked their asses off for a lifetime received the recognition they deserve, ignoring the new entry brat bands who profess to be rock and are idolized and revered, handing them the future of rock. In rock, everything has been written; now it's just a matter of distinguishing what is good from what is not.

CLUTCH are damn good, but few seem to notice at least here, while in America they have an impressive following. It could be due to their old-fashioned musical proposition, or their non-look... it's hard to say. The fact is, they've been showering us with their deep southern hard rock blues as indebted to the '70s as recreated with warmth and pure simplicity, making them as genuine as they are sometimes even original.

Originating from Maryland, with this "Strange Cousins from the west", they should be on their way to their tenth album release. If the eye wants its piece, a note of merit goes to whoever designed the CD packing, stuff from another time. Truly excellent, absolutely worth seeing.

Clutch continues to propose what they were born for, a heavy rock blues sometimes tending toward funk, at others toward a certain stoner, a genre they have often been associated with, occasionally brushing against psychedelia. All the while maintaining the reins of the song and melody. Then kudos go to Neil Fallon, who with his warm and suitably gritty voice, gives the songs the rawness they need.

The beginning is a declaration of intent: a Slide guitar introduces the hard blues on which "Motherless child" is based, and you already know where the album is headed, a song that the Black Crowes have been dreaming of writing for years now, just like the groovy "50,000 unstoppable watts" with its chorus "Anthrax, ham radio, and liquor" that gets stuck in your head. Tim Slut's guitar, the absolute protagonist in "Freakonomics", becomes sabbathian in "Abraham Lincoln", introduced by war drums of independence, extending sulferously and martial, reminiscent of certain things from the mid-nineties Corrosion of Conformity or the more recent Down. The tone changes with the funky "Struck down" and the Hendrix-like "The amazing Kreskin".

In short, if you love simplicity and those American sounds that smell of dust and desert, make this record yours by going backward to rediscover this highly underrated band that has been carrying forward rock for years with sweat, without the help of mass media, but with the only ingredients that could guide rock toward a healthy future, attitude and passion.