Clutch Blast Tyrant CD

Clutch: Neil Fallon (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Tim Sult (guitar); Dan Maines (bass); Jean Paul Gaster (drums).
Principally recorded at Water Music, The Machine Shop, Hoboken, Nerw Jersey.
Personnel: Neil Fallon (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Tim Sult (guitar); Jean-Paul Gaster (drums).
Recording information: Jean Paul's Living Room; The Machine Shop, Hoboken, N.J; Water Music, Hoboken, N.J.
Few bands have managed to prosper inside a bubble of their own devising and outside the constricting rules of the music business as successfully and for as long as Maryland's Clutch; who continue to unleash album after album of barely evolving, groovy stoner rock, regardless of label affiliation and changing trends. In fact, the only concession made with their sixth album (give or take a few EPs and "odds and sods" sets), 2004's Blast Tyrant, was its reported first-time adoption of digital recording, although you'd never really know it from the end results. Of interchangeable sonics with pretty much any of their previous albums, most of Blast Tyrant's numbers are textbook and unmistakably Clutch, with their punchy, often circular-sounding guitar riffs, gruff vocal delivery, and über-ironic lyrics distinguished into three by now familiar categories: tales of unfathomably obscure imagery ("Spleen Merchant," "(In the Wake Of) The Sollen Goat," and "Eulogy for a Ghost"); darkly comical diatribes ("Profits of Doom," "Army of Bono," and "Subtle Hustle"); and politicized rants such as "Worm Drink" and the standout "The Mob Goes Wild" (which seriously rails against the government's poor handling of wartime death, while laughingly encouraging "everybody to move to Canada now, bum rush the border guard," etc.). Additional mentionables -- for good and ill -- include opener "Mercury" (part song, part feedback, all free-form), the unusually acoustic and psychedelic "The Regulator," the Hammond-laced instrumental "Wysiwyg," and the particularly memorable "(Notes From the Trial Of) La Curandera" -- all of which also fit into the above three cited categories. In other words, Blast Tyrant is likely to confound those who have previously been confounded, and appease those who were previously appeased, leaving Clutch, as always, safely ensconced in their timeless and impenetrable creative bubble. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia
One of the most intriguing and enigmatic hard-rock bands of the 1990s and early 2000s, Clutch won over an intensely devoted fan base with its energetic combination of Black Sabbath-approved monster riffs, Butthole Surfers-esque genre-mixing, and lyrics that fuse Led Zeppelin's medieval mysticism with Faith No More's modern surrealism. With BLAST TYRANT, the group offers up a typically unpredictable sonic onslaught that benefits from punchy, in-your-face production values, recalling the best work of acts such as Stone Temple Pilots and Audioslave. While less concerned with pop hooks than those two bands, Clutch has always been one of the most melody-oriented groups of its genre. Here the Maryland-based ensemble matches harmony-laden vocals with a Pantera-worthy dose of power metal, and does it with a conviction that few contemporaries can match.