Review by Andy Valentine
The second half of Clutch’s career; it’s clear these boys have been paying homage to their roots. All of the albums between Blast Tyrant (2003) and this new one Strange Cousins from the West (2009) are head-nodding blues albums siphoned through the sensibilities of a stoner heavy metal band. Clutch used to be an eccentric and funny metal band. Somehow, without anyone noticing, they’ve become the last real rock band there is.
That’s not to say they kick it old school. In fact, Strange Cousins is very much a modern record, just crafted around retro influences, and capped off with Clutch's own rock standard. It’s funny, if it weren’t for the earlier albums in Clutch’s catalog like Transitional Speedway League (1993), Self-Titled (1995), and Elephant Riders (1998), I’m not sure I’d really appreciate how good Strange Cousins really is.
And that’s really saying something. This is a band that doesn’t just put out record after record. Instead, each album is its own necessary part of the Clutch library. In a lot of ways, Strange Cousins sounds like a companion piece to 2005’s Robot Hive/Exodus; the same way that Blast Tyrant was the perfect follow-up to Pure Rock Fury (2001).
Fact is anyone who hasn’t already discovered this band is in for a real treat. Just like Metal Hammer magazine said when Beale Street to Oblivion came out in 2007:
“Every motherfucker just loves Clutch.”
It’s impossible not to.
Album to album, the great songs just keep on coming – “Abraham Lincoln”, deals with the assassination of America’s 16th president, while “Struck Down” brings with it some of the best guitar work we’ve ever heard from Tim Sult. And goddamn, Neil Fallon stamps his vocal mark all over “50,000 Unstoppable Watts”, the album’s lead single. Through the course of Strange Cousins, Fallon makes shifting through different genres seem as easy as buttering a slice of bread.
This band keeps getting better and better. In 2005, Robot Hive/Exodus was one of the best albums of the year – it had moments that were die-hard heavy metal, but it stayed characteristically Clutch throughout. Through the course of their career, Clutch has been groovy jam-metal, stoner rock and now bluesy metal. All of the above. This kind of diversification is something that often hinders such bands.
For example, when Earth Crisis puts out album after album of hard driving hardcore hooks and standard metal breakdowns, they are called repetitive. So, when the band tried to mix it up things with its 2001 album Slither, adding a modern “urban beat” aspect to its sound – it sounded fucking terrible.
With Strange Cousins, Clutch may not be attempting to reinvent itself, but in doing so the band plays to its crowd of fans who have followed the sound wherever it has taken them. This band has reinvented itself over and over again. Clutch reinvent themselves whenever they damn well please. All that aside, if you know you already enjoy Clutch going into Strange Cousins, this album will bring you all the rock you expect. And even a little you didn’t.