Friday Full-Length: Clutch, Strange Cousins from the West
Clutch, Strange Cousins from the West (2009)
It’s been 10 years since Clutch released Strange Cousins from the West (also discussed here), which for a few reasons represents a pivotal moment in their catalog, despite being what some might consider a “lesser” Clutch album compared to some of their other genre-defining work. Their ninth studio full-length, it was the second release through their own Weathermaker Music imprint after their 2008 Full Fathom Five live record and DVD, and it followed a stint on DRT Entertainment that resulted in arguably the most successful three-album stretch of the Maryland outfit’s career to-date, bringing forth 2004’s Blast Tyrant, 2005’s Robot Hive/Exodus and 2007’s From Beale Street to Oblivion (reissues reviewed here) making for a groove triumvirate that found the band successfully and increasingly dipping into blues influences and incorporating them with their well established funk-infused heavy rock and roll, rooted in punk and even at that point already long since distinctly their own.
They were touring hard at this point as well. They’ve never been shy, but the beginning of the Weathermaker era meant Clutch were all-in in terms of the band being their livelihood as well as their passion, so along with the aforementioned Full Fathom Five and 2010’s Live at the 9:30 (review here) live offerings, that meant they were on the road even more. At the same time, the makeup of the band itself was undergoing a rare change. It was something of a surprise when organist Mick Schauer joined the core four-piece of bassist Dan Maines, drummer Jean Paul Gaster, guitarist Tim Sult and vocalist/guitarist Neil Fallon, as the band had never shown much interest in fleshing out arrangements beyond the occasional flourish of percussion or whatever else, but the massive and enduring success of Robot Hive/Exodus and From Beale Street to Oblivion both on tour and in the spread of the songs — seems like “Electric Worry” still shows up in random places over a decade later — is testament to the reception Clutch‘s bluesier stylistic turn and the collaboration with Schauer, shortlived though it was on the grander scale of the band’s almost-30-year career.
Schauer passed away earlier this year, with the awkward timing of being roughly concurrent to Clutch releasing a re-recorded version of “Electric Worry” without keys as a single for their Weathermaker Vault series. He was out of the band by the time they set to putting together Strange Cousins from the West, and though momentum was on Clutch‘s side, there are times on the album where his absence is felt, even as Fallon stepped up the amount of time he was playing guitar and the sound went to arguably its bluesiest degree. Make no mistake, the songs are there. Opener “Motherless Child” puts them in immediate blues communication, and “Struck Down” follows suit while transitioning into the pure-Clutch mega-hook that is “50,000 Unstoppable Watts” — which even a decade later continues to duke it out with the later “Let a Poor Man Be” for the catchiest song on the record in my mind — to round out an initial salvo that plays to the band’s strengths without outright repeating what they’ve done in the past. “Abraham Lincoln” takes a moodier turn, bringing in some more subdued Americana and Southern heavy, and is perhaps the first point at which Schauer seems to be missing, as some of the spaces and crescendos have room for where the organ might’ve been just a couple years earlier. Though the subsequent “Minotaur” is funkier and more uptempo and would certainly host keys as well if they’d been there to be hosted, the mid-album pair of “The Amazing Kreskin” and “Witchdoctor” represent to my mind the place where Clutch‘s transitional state is most apparent.
It’s not that there’s something wrong with 
either song, structurally or in execution, but in “The Amazing Kreskin,” as Sult‘s guitar noodles through the verse atop Maines‘ always-crucial/always-reliable foundation of bass, one can almost hear how Schauer might’ve played off of it in complementing and filling out the sound, and all the more so in the jam and build in the track’s second half. “Witchdoctor,” no slouch either in the hook department, goes a step further and weaves a line of sustained guitar throughout different parts, actually filling that open space as the keys otherwise would. As a fan of the band, I have a hard time critiquing Clutch — I love seeing them live and though when Strange Cousins From the West came out I thought it didn’t necessarily have the same vibrancy as Robot Hive/Exodus, which was also produced by J. Robbins, I think this record holds up 10 years after the fact — but as much as every Clutch record is different from the one before it, sometimes in direct response to the one before it, as 2013’s landmark Earth Rocker (review here) would be to Strange Cousins, the change they were dealing with at the time seems to be audible here as they were feeling their way through writing out these blues influences without having the organ, electric piano, and so on, as a part of the process at whatever stage it was.
That said, you’ll never hear me take away from “Let a Poor Man Be” on any level except perhaps gender politics, and “Freakonomics,” the Pappo’s Blues cover “Algo Ha Cambiado” and “Sleestak Lightning” do fine in filling out the end of the album, the first of them undeniably the most memorable — “Only the freaks have all the answers!” — and the Spanish-language push of “Algo Ha Cambiado” a welcome uptempo twist ahead of the finale, on which Gaster breaks out a bit of cowbell but is otherwise somewhat understated. It’s a fair-enough ending to an album that has a deceptively broad dynamic and as-ever-rock-solid-rock songcraft and performance, and it was the point at which Clutch pushed the blues as far as they would on the trajectory they’d followed for the latter half of the aughts. It would be a long stretch for them, four years, before Earth Rocker showed up, and when it did, the reunion with producer Machine essentially reset their course along a more straight-ahead heavy rock path, not forgetting the lessons of Robot Hive, Beale Street or Strange Cousins, but laying claim with renewed vigor to the driving, ultra-grooving rock and roll that made them the absolutely essential band they were and are in the first place.
Of course, their forever-tour continues and their studio work continues. The aforementioned Weathermaker Vault series has resulted in four singles this year, they released Book of Bad Decisions (review here) in 2018 as a follow-up to 2015’s Psychic Warfare (review here), and just this week, they announced that as part of their annual holiday tour, they’ll play three special sets in Washington D.C., New Jersey and Philadelphia comprising a total of 54 songs and, on the latter night — also New Year’s Eve — they’ll also do Blast Tyrant in full for the first and hopefully not last time. Also, they’re calling it ClutchMas, which is adorable. One expects 2020 tour dates to be announced in January, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they had new material in the works they’ll set to hammering out on the road soon enough (if they’re not yet). Train don’t stop.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
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Another week. The Patient Mrs.’ first semester teaching at William Paterson University ended yesterday — at least classes did — so congratulations to her on making it through what was a pretty rough schedule, and being one chunk closer to reclaiming the tenure she gave up in Massachusetts to move us back to New Jersey earlier this year. Last night, we talked about how we didn’t really miss being up there for the most part. She and I both had friends — her more than me, it should go without saying — but being so far from family and so on was hard. I’ve seen my two NJ-based nephews more in the last eight months than in the six years prior. You can’t replace that kind of time.
I’m exhausted, and it’s going to be a long winter of “WTF do we do with this kid?” since things like freezing temperatures, darkness and snow on the ground preclude hours-at-a-time of being outside. The Pecan is a goer. He goes. He’s taken to “flying,” whereby he basically throws his arms out to his sides and runs in circles around the living room. He wants The Patient Mrs. and I to join in, and we do, because he so clearly, clearly needs that running to keep him even. I feel like I should start investing in ritalin now, but I know damn well that if I had a stockpile going, I’d just end up taking it myself. Which might be fun, come to think of it.
This week… was a week. I’ve been in a deep-dive funk of don’t want to do anything, don’t want to move or leave the house, which is not conducive to the needs of a two year old. He keeps my ass in gear. Otherwise, I think it’d be way more couch time, which, while we’re talking about needs, is probably not conducive to my own. Being people is hard.
But hey, next week is a thing that’s happening. I’ll be putting the finishing touches on my top 30 — by which I mean actually making the list — and it’ll probably take me three days to actually write it, so that takes care of next weekend. This weekend I’m writing a new bio for Geezer and apparently trying to figure out how to get a newsletter going, since when I asked on social media yesterday, the response was pretty positive to the idea. Next week though has a review long overdue for Caustic Casanova and premieres for CB3 and (shhh… don’t tell anyone) Yatra, so it’s gonna be good. I was kind of overwhelmed this week at the responses to the news stories about Wino and Sasquatch. Nice to know people are out there and give a crap about this stuff. I know it’s not my writing drawing anyone to those news stories, it’s the music, but frankly, that’s how it should be.
I hope you’re getting through the holiday season. I hate the holidays. So much. Fuck Xmas. Fuck New Year’s. Fuck the faux ‘meaning’ of it all, the vulgar commerce, the weather, the elf, the shelf, the Jesus and the Santa Claus and the ball dropping and the lights. Even Elvis’ “Blue Christmas” isn’t worth that shit. I’d trade it happily. But I hope you’re coming through it okay, anyhow. It ain’t easy.
That should just about do it for me. It’s time for me to go try and bury my head and listen to music. Like, just for pleasure. There’s a thought. Friday’s usually my chance to do that. Maybe Thursday during nap too if I’m lucky, as I was yesterday. The real test this weekend will be if I can motivate my ass to do any work tomorrow or if I just sink back in bed after the alarm goes off and pile it all on Sunday, thereby wrecking my day entirely, stressing out myself and The Patient Mrs. and, by extension/osmosis, The Pecan, who invariably feeds off the emotions we give him.
Which is why I’m a bad parent. Because I have nothing good to give him.
I could go on, but I think you probably get the gist of how the next couple days are going to play out over here. Great and safe weekend. See you Monday for more good times.
FRM. Forum, Radio, Merch.
Tags: Clutch, Clutch Strange Cousins from the West, Maryland, Strange Cousins from the West, Weathermaker Music
Seeing them with Graveyard and Kamchatka next week. Cannot wait. First time taking my son to see them too.
Family Clutch outing for the win.