It may be time to eat a little crow. In fact, it’s probably well past time.
Following the release of “Robot Hive/Exodus,” things started to angle down for Clutch. Their jam dalliances were coming more and more into the fore of their music, and it was causing division among the fanbase – those who wanted the band to perpetually be the group that released “Pure Rock Fury,” and those who wanted to hear more from “Jam Room.” (Just as an editorial note for context, I was in the former group.)
The next two albums, if you were a fan of the band’s particular brand of blistering, riff-driving metal, were disappointing to say the least. They had strayed too far from their root source and there was a sense that the bell curve which had peaked with “Blast Tyrant” was riding the inevitable crash back to the bottom.
Now though, retribution and redemption. “Earth Rocker” showed some promise, and then “Psychic Warfare” was a modern masterpiece; while not the same style per se as some of its lofty predecessors, the album popped with spirit and vigor and showed that the band was still possessed of plenty of fight and desire.
And now we come to “Book of Bad Decisions.”
What we are really presented here is two records in one – an album proper of eight songs, attached to a back-half EP that experiments in a new direction. Imagine if the band’s self-titled album and the “Impetus” EP had been packaged as one record, and you’re in the right direction.
Addressing the first half first (natch,) we kick the album off with “Gimme the Keys,” and the logical extension of “Psychic Warfare” kicks into high gear from jump. Off we go.
There’s a different flavor here, though. “Book of Bad Decisions” is something we haven’t heard from Clutch before – there’s a level of accessibility here we’re not accustomed to while they’re composing music with this much body. Not to say that Clutch has ever been as dense as a technical death metal experiment or anything, but they have always had enough edge to elude radio and popular visibility. This album changes all of that by taking the rock hooks of (ugh) “From Beale Street to Oblivion” and mixing them with a throatier sensibility and deeper groove.
In the final cut, what we hear is a big, loud album that sounds like the soundtrack to a “Mirror, Mirror” version of “American Hustle,” or some similarly themed throwback to 1970’s intrigue. The bombast of “How to Shake Hands” alone is fuzzy as hell but stylized and measured in a way that only Clutch has mastered.
To pair this song with “In Walks Barbarella” is the album’s best back-to-back punch, though it comes with the caveat that we’ve never heard Clutch put down a lick like the latter song. The principal melody is put down by horns, which gives an affect like Elvis in the later Las Vegas days, but still threaded through with Clutch’s usual down-tuned aplomb. Roll this all together with the jangly piano of “Vision Quest” and the insistent cowbell (insert joke here,) of “Weird Times,” and we have a Clutch experience that’s exceptionally high octane, but remarkably different from what we’re used to the from the band.
The second half of the record begins with “Sonic Counselor,” and from this point forward, we return to the bluesy, gin-soaked basement that Clutch has felt singularly at home in for more than twenty-five years. “A Good Fire” thumps along with the carousing, beer-swinging style that’s become so idiomatic in the band’s music, and it’s a pleasant enough return to the expected.
In a twist, the more traditional second half of “Book of Bad Decisions,” is actually the less interesting one, as Clutch runs out of experimental material and simply goes back to stripped-down basics. That’s not to say that it’s not enjoyable, far from it – it simply feels like we’ve heard it before, right down to the slow, plodding burn of the album’s closer, “Lorelei.” Clutch has written variations of this song multiple times, whether it be “Spacegrass,” “Drink to the Dead,” “The Dragonfly,” “Son of Virginia,” or whatever other version.
All credit to Clutch here. To write an album of fifteen songs that contains no filler whatsoever, and moreover makes all those songs compelling and enjoyable on some level, is no small feat. And no matter what we said above, make no mistake that there are no duds here – the second half of the album is only diminished in quality relative to the first half, not to good music as a whole. “Book of Bad Decisions” does require a little more patience to get into than “Psychic Warfare” did, but it’s one of the best albums of the year to date. Period.
And here’s where the crow eating comes in. There is no way that “Book of Bad Decisions” can happen without the band having worked through and ultimately absorbed the lessons of “From Beale Street to Oblivion” and “Strange Cousins From the West.” We have lamented on these very pages that Clutch may never again be ‘The American Psycho Band’ as was boasted on the back cover of their eponymous record, and they may never be, but to grow and evolve is the lifeblood of any group of creative professionals, and so to expect the same thing over a quarter-century was the height of folly on our part in the first place. Mea culpa.
A further serving of crow – since “Strange Cousins,” (and no, I am not changing my opinion of that record or “Beale Street,”) Clutch has released three albums ranging from good to exceptional, all of which belong in the pantheon of the band’s most laudable works. Speaking for anyone who may have left the band for dead, our bad, Clutch.
Clutch remains the pace car for American rock, and all of its derivatives. They continue to show us how it should be done.
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