Alternative
Clutch: other bands might as well pack up their tents and think about heading home
Eloquent and amplified, Sunrise On Slaughter Beach is the best Clutch album yet
Latter-day Clutch are enjoying something of a creative purple patch – if you can call the past 10 years since Earth Rocker a patch.
The sophistication and breadth of their songwriting has escalated to the point that each album is now an exercise in lyrical artistry with the kind of aural impact usually associated with a comet hitting the Earth. Sunrise On Slaughter Beach saunters out of the gate like a book of notable American fiction orchestrated by Motörhead, Mastodon and John Lee Hooker.
There’s a remarkable sense of interplay, open space, hard rock and ambition that suggests most other bands might as well pack up their tents and think about heading home.
It’s hard to pick gems from a sea of diamonds, but tracks like the juddering Slaughter Beach, the roiling Mountain Of Bone or the shadowy menace of Mercy Brown will ring around your head long after the music’s stopped.
The new issue of Classic Rock is available as a limited edition Clutch bundle (opens in new tab).
Source: loudersound.com
