Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Beat the Devil's Tattoo

(Abstract Dragon)

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

Moving from a favorite band to a not so favorite, and then back again, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from a new album. Especially since there has been a fairly drastic line-up change in the Motorcycle Club ranks. Gone is the dark and mysterious Nick Jago, and in his place, we have the bright and still kind of mysterious Leah Shapiro, formerly of the Raveonettes. Seems like a good choice to me, I mean, if you have to replace Nick, if you have to find another member of the B.R.M.C., if you have to go and find yourself another drummer for a dark bluesy shoegazey sonic rock ‘n’ roll band, you might as well grab someone from the Raveonettes.

So, howsabout that music?

This is, officially, the sixth studio album from the black rebel boys (and girl). I kind of can’t help but count it as number 5, since I’ve only listened to the The Effects of 333 once, and I don’t think that I made it all the way through. I’m definitely not saying it’s bad, it’s just not my thing. I was, however, a big fan of Baby 81, as evidenced in a previous Red Alerted review. So how does this little devilish tattoo hold up? Well, it kind of slips back towards the bottom of the pile. We still aren’t reaching the high water mark of the debut album, but I’m still hitting these songs much harder than I did for Howl.

Not really hard, but it moves up a few more rock steps. The problem that I have with this album is not really with the songs, but with the flow, the cohesiveness of the album. Prior to this, it seemed to me that regardless if they were doing the up and fuzzy blur or the down and dirty blues, or the sonic experimental leap of faith, the albums have had a solidity to them, and with the last release, it was a cohesive mix of the sounds that had been previously worked with. Beat The Devil’s Tattoo has the ups and downs, but the separation between the songs makes it a difficult album to punch play and listen.

The title track is a bluesy folk number calling out for the White Stripes, while the second hit, “Conscience Killer” moves a little more into the psych-garage territory, bringing to mind The Soundtrack of Our Lives. Not a bad thing, but I’d prefer if it called up some B.R.M.C. instead. The third song moves a little closer to what I was hoping for, but it’s with the fourth song, “War Machine” that quite possibly gives you the chapter where this band is really at. Slow desert sludge Sabbath Mary Chain blues distortion, and if they moved around this a little more, I think we might have a good thing going. But then they move into a soft folksy acoustic number, and my ride hits a wall like a black rebel motorcycle crash…

Come back…

And they do, with a lo-fi Jesus and Mary Chain jam, hitting a little Stoned and Dethroned in my ears. They follow that with a beautiful B.R.M.C. song, and I’m happy, and they slide back down into a little hard swam blues with “River Styx”.

The drums are hot and the guitars are muddy, and the band has hit a good groove, and then they decide to throw in a nice and sweet and sad and flow disruptive folk ballad.

Up and down and up and down I go.

“Aya,” the tenth song on this album, brings it slightly back to that White Stripes feel, but it pushes through a garage dirge as if it was a 45 being played on 33. It’s almost as if this whole album is just a collection of randomly picked singles, a best of the B-Sides, perhaps, because these songs are good, even though I do want to hear “Aya” played a little faster. Still, when that song finishes, we slide back into that Black Rebel mood, and I can’t help but smile, at least for the remaining six minutes of the song, because then we jump tracks again and hit “Long Way Down”.

This song, a nice piano ballad, has a very musical touch. And by musical, I mean like, it could’ve been cut from a scene in Bugsy Malone, or maybe Little Shop Of Horrors.  Black Rebel, The Musical.

One song left, where’s it going to end…

Thankfully, a long rebel jam. Slightly shoegazed prog rock, tripping out from under the waters and shedding a few tears before smashing your head into the dark fuzz build-up, and if the whole album moved like this song, I would be so happy.