Clutch Album: “Blast Tyrant”

Been a clutch fan since first seein them locally 15 years ago. The live performance was something I've never experienced before in my 200 some odd concerts. It honestly was rapture. The cd's started filling my shelf immediately. Then after Elephant Riders I kinda eased up on the music scene. But then a few months ago I decided to check up on what Clutch had been making. I bought Exodus and Blast Tyrant. HOLY CRAP!

This band is beyond phenomenal. Blast Tyrant may be the best album I've ever experienced...ditto Exodus(but thats for another review). Clutch may be the greatest band ever and yet the least recognized as great...and I go back to the early 70's with my listening.

What can I say about this album. It's incredible...It's powerful...It's cosmic...It's funky...It's simply unbelievable pure hard rock from the soul.

Anyone who doesn't know Clutch but is considering them...stop! Go Buy this NOW! Those who know Clutch...DAMN!!!

It kicks off with a blast of standard classic sounding Clutch with Mercury. Hard...Attacking...In your face.

Then it transforms into a nice driven wah'd out ominous Profits of Doom. Simply an excellent song with so much power mixed in with creeping riffs its scary.

The Mob Goes wild is a nice third. Crunchy Punchy song with an excellent chorus. Some words are goofy(and political, who cares) but thats a clutch standard. Great Chorus...sick.

Cypress Grove is just a classic. Old sound Clutch. Scary crazy lyrics about evil women. The setup just births another perfect chorus that rips you out of your seat and throws you across the room. Holy Diver where you at? One of My favorites on the album.

Then comes Promoter...OH!!!...The words...the way they roll off Neils tongue like a greased jackhammer. The chorus doesn't catch like the previous songs, but the song overall is great.

Then theres the change of pace with the forlorn desolate The Regulator...reminiscent of Zeppelins No Quarter. Spooky mysterious...with another old style clutch chorus. They just keep coming on this album.

Then Worm Drink...nice funk...maybe my favorite on the album, if its possible to choose a favorite off of a complete album like this. Awwoooooo!!! This is a funky song with a sweeping mosh groove chorus and a ripping tearing burning guitar riff in the middle mixed with passion lyrics and werewolf howls. These guys are insane!

Army of Bono next...politico-biblical mania shot at you like a cannon with nice harmonies and then a seperate ending that completes the song nicely.

Spleen Merchant is a kicking shouter that continues the onslaught of riffs, not letting you even think about pausing...you're stuck in this wall of sound with no way out.

Swollen Goat follows...purposefully awkward but good with a decent chorus...maybe the weakest on the album IMO, but thats only because everything else is so damn good. It's actually a good song, but an 8 on an album of 9's and 10's

Weather Maker...a little transitional ditty thats just odd, not really a song...but somehow it fits. Nothing special...filler.

Then the groovy swinging Subtle Hustle...it's smooth as mothers butter. It really is.

Then it kicks down to a nice acoustic Ghost with Pink Floydish keyboard overtones...that aquires a heavy melodic bass beat along the way, before dropping down into maybe the best chorus on this album...passionate and foreboding. It gives me chills. Love this.

La Curandera next...a bit Ozzy sounding at first...but then a very cool riff based center that makes the song.

Finishes off perfectly with the voiceless repetative but sublimely groovy Wysiwyg...kinda takes me back to the 70's.

Absolutely incredible album....incredible!

You positively must have this album...or miss out on a musical experience like nothing else in decades...maybe ever.

IMO Clutch's best work, followed closely by Exodus...just phenomenal. Get both.

I bow in reverence to these true geniuses of musicianship.

A few years ago, my guitar teacher at the time recommended several bands he thought I should be listening to. One of them was Clutch. With that I went out and purchased a few albums...I was hooked almost instantly.

Clutch has been around for over a decade and has amassed a large collection of releases. Most fans, including myself, will agree that their best work was their self-titled release (1995). I feel that subsequent releases were lacking something. "The Elephant Riders" was a solid record but seemed to lack a certain energy. "Jam Room" seemed too short and bland for me. "Pure Rock Fury" was a fairly good record, but nothing outstanding. "Blast Tyrant", while it isn't as good as or better than the self-titled in my opinion, is several large steps in the right direction and may rank as my second favorite release from them.

The tracks on this album are much faster and heavier than the last several albums. While there aren't too many "standout" tracks, the album functions incredibly well as a whole. The production is fantastic. (Although some people complain about overproduction...if you want to hear stripped-down versions of the songs go see them live) Neil Fallon's harsh vocal style is a bit more refined and sounds excellent on the record. Tim Sult's guitar riffs seem more simplified than on earlier releases but still remain huge chunks of sonic delight. The rhythm section of Dan Maines on bass and Jean-Paul Gaster on drums bring everything together into one extraordinary package. Even the bizarre artwork is a sight to behold. The CD package unfolds into a landscape, and the lyric booklet contains illustrations of the characters featured in the songs.

"Mercury" opens the album with over a minute of heavy instrumental-ness before the vocals kick in. An excellent choice for an opener.

So while I don't consider this to be Clutch's greatest release, it's still an incredible album that I'd recommend to anyone who's a fan of hard rock. If you can only own one Clutch record, I'd suggest the self-titled release. If you can only on two, I say get this one too.

Post-script: The CD is labelled as 'enhanced' but doesn't contain the enhanced features it was originally intended to due to time constraints.

I've enjoyed Clutch for years, and this album is brains, humor, and balls. It may be the best they've done yet; more importantly, it's tough to say, because it doesn't easily compare to any of their other records. Clutch has succeeded once again, in expanding their awesome and unique style, and not letting their beautiful thing fall into a shtick.

It's all about the unique and beautiful flavor of American mythos and language, brilliantly articulated, in ways hilarious and moving at the same time; sung with a band that lives to kick ass.

This CD is awesome. Now that that's out of the way, I found the "Mob goes Wild" song on my computer a week ago, after having it in there for a year or so, but never getting around to listening to it. Once I did, I was hooked. I'll admit that this is the only real clutch I've heard, and know nothing really about the band, nor have I been with them from the begining. But that doesn't mean I can't say this album rocks so hard, that it just rocks. I can't stop listening to it. I have played it and almost nothing else since I got it five days ago. "The Mob Goes Wild" is deffinately one of the best songs, but there are so many more. "Spleen Merchant", "Profits of Doom", "Promoter (Of Earthbound Causes)", "(In the Wake Of) The Swollen Goat" and all of the other songs. You want to learn the entire song just so you can sing along. The lyrics also actually rhyme, which is refreshing in this time of distorted-to-hell vocals that have no meaning. I can't stop singing these songs throughout the day, and they are all awesome musicians. Beautiful production, and just unstoppable intensity. Buy it if you love that rock-with-some-western-flavor sort of music. Maybe that's not the best description of it, but, for the last time, IT ROCKS!

The beautiful thing about Clutch is that, album to album, you are never certain what you are going to get, other than that it will be "Clutch" unique. Just prior to my last spin of "Blast Tyrant," I was listening to the starkly crazy and different previous release, "Jam Room." Amazing how two albums can be dichotomies of each other, yet pure greatness in their own right. "Blast Tyrant" is hands down one of the best heavy (the term "hard" is too light for this release) rock releases of the year.

Clutch is in a league of their own. The songwriting is always entertaining, the music as heavy as a medicine ball to the gut, the guitar playing pure Gibson magic, the time signatures and rhythms always outside mainstream rock, and the singing by Neil Fallon inimitable. This release mixes heavy metal with a few of the good elements of classic hard rock, makes an entertaining turn to the southeast mountains, and stays there with some ass kickin', southern fried, boozed soaked, in your face energy.

All of Clutch's releases are great, but definitely not for the faint of heart mainstream hard rock fan. This type of release has the best chance at garnering Clutch a larger heavy rock following with accolades. I am just as sure that the next release will be unpredictable, funky, and just as amazingly different as the last. Isn't that why all of us Clutch "faithful" love them so much? Keep kickin', guys, the elbow grease of the hardest working band in America is paying off in spades!