It’s all in the guitar – that is to say, what’s not in the piano. Look, by the time they’ve stomped their way to the chorus and Rich Robinson has done the second solo in about a minute and a half on opener “Bedside Manners” there are only six words you need:
The Black Crowes are back, baby.
They know this record is important too. Hell, they know the damn thing is a throwback. I bought the vinyl record for “Happiness Bastards” and it’s hiding in plain sight.
The front cover is painted over “The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion”, and the back? That’s “Shake Your Moneymaker”.
The clues are there. The boys know. They also know that the album needed to be good.
It’s better than I dared hope.
“Rats And Clowns” almost dares you to take them on. “You want some?” Asks Chris Robinson. He’s not joking.
“Cross Your Fingers” is initially acoustic. By its first chorus, it is spitting: “Why’d you hope I die?”
Producer Jay Joyce – who’s worked with everyone from Eric Church and Brothers Osborne to Halestorm and Coheed And Cambria – has trimmed the fat that TBC albums sometimes have and distilled this down to all the best bits. The organ on “Wanting And Waiting” for example, the gospel style vocals, but more than that, more than anything, the pure, unadulterated fun of rock n roll (and anyone who knows the history of the band knows that “fun” and the Black Crowes haven’t always been ubiquitous).
But the raw materials have always been there. No one sings like Chris Robinson, still. The beautiful ballad “Wilted Rose” sees Lainey Wilson do her thing and match him too.
The fact that even that one ends up screeching perhaps shows the mindset here (and I’m willing to bet you right now they jam this at their shows in the Spring)
Side 2 (in old money) kicks off with a real hip Shaker in “Dirty Cold Sun”. Let’s be real here, Mick would have stolen this and put it on “Hackney Diamonds”. It’s a stones (pun intended) cold beauty. No one struts about like this yelling “Sho’ nuff got me freezing”. That’s why we need the Crowes flying like this.
The harmonica-drenched “Bleed It Dry” is so classic sounding you’d imagine it was a cover if you didn’t know who wrote it.
Brian Griffin’s drums anchor down “Flesh Wound”, and there’s a kind of E St Band vibe to all of this.
The slide guitar on “Follow The Moon” – Rich Robinson is joined by Nico Bereciaua in this brave new world – makes it sound utterly filthy.
As if to prove they still can do ballads, the last song on the album is “Kindred Friend”, slower, more reflective and yet as warm as a summer breeze. “Tomorrow owes nothing to the past” sings Chris Robinson, and the line “Let’s stop pretending and write our own ending” seems prescient too.
That’s what they’re doing here, maybe?
When I heard that they were releasing their first album in 15 years, part of me was excited and part of me worried.
You see, The Black Crowes were a seminal band to me. Back in 89, I didn’t know The Faces, The Stones, The Allman Brothers and whatever else, but I knew I loved “Shake Your Moneymaker”. And “Remedy” from that second album would still be in my top ten songs to this day. So you don’t want them to mess with your memories.
Not a bit of that here. “Happiness Bastards” is as good as anything in the back catalogue.
On the day it came out I Tweeted “Oh Black Crowes how I’ve missed you, back to reclaim your place as Kings.” Maybe it’s not that, though, after a couple of weeks of listening to it. Maybe it’s the sound of Black Crowes taking back what they’d lost.
Rating 9.5/10
