Album Review: Clutch, Weathermaker Vault Series Vol. 1
Posted in Reviews on November 25th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
For those Clutch fans who’ve followed along over the last year-plus as the band has made their way toward building up their ‘Weathermaker Vault Series’ — the first one to be unveiled was Cactus-via-Willie–Dixon‘s “Evil” in June 2019 — through their own Weathermaker Music label, the collection Weathermaker Vault Series Vol. 1, should be a welcome advent. At very least convenient. In addition to the singles themselves, it includes odds and ends like “Run, John Barleycorn, Run” from the Maryland lifer-rockers’ 2014 split with reggae-informed buddies Lionize, and “Algo Ha Cambiado,” a cover of influential ’70s-era Argentinian outfit Pappo’s Blues that appeared in a jammier take as part of 2009’s Strange Cousins From the West (discussed here and here), as well as sundry other reduxes and covers.
It is, accordingly, a fan-piece. Weathermaker Vault Series Vol. 1 should probably not be anyone’s starting point with Clutch. The band have a wide catalog of full-lengths to choose from, and which one makes the best entry to their work is an argument — a fun argument! — for another time. These 10 songs put together as a respectable 38-minute LP are best approached for what they are, and that’s a niche offering for the previously-indoctrinated.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. As they approach 30 years since first getting together, the four-piece of vocalist Neil Fallon, guitarist Tim Sult, bassist Dan Maines and drummer Jean-Paul Gaster are no strangers when it comes to this kind of thing. Various limited live offerings through the years have surfaced, as well as countless promo discs and collections like 2003’s Slow Hole to China: Rare and Unreleased, 2005’s Pitchfork & Lost Needles, 2015’s La Curandera and of course the massive 2020 limited box set, The Obelisk, that brought together all their Weathermaker material — this compilation aside — under one banner. It may be the first of its kind — and it may not be the last; hence ‘vol. 1’ — but even though the method of releasing singles and David Brodsky-directed videos over the course of a year and a half is new to the band, it’s an engagement with multimedia-focused attention spans in a way that fits with what they’ve done before.
Beginning with the recently-unveiled revisit to “Passive Restraints” from the 1992 Earache Records EP of the same name that features a guest appearance from vocalist Randy Blythe of Lamb of God, Weathermaker Vault Series Vol. 1 wants nothing for an initial kick of energy. The nature of an outing like this is to be somewhat disjointed as tracks from various sessions are cobbled together, and Clutch have always been a band who bring out different sounds and vibes working with different producers, and while J. Robbins might be the unifying factor here in having helmed several of the songs, there are still shifts both in sound and style as the band spans their long career arc. Clutch don’t hide from them.
Instead, they back “Passive Restraints” with a newer take on one of their most successful singles, “Electric Worry.” The song that originally appeared on 2007’s From Beale Street to Oblivion (reissue reviewed here) is among Clutch‘s most landmark hooks, and while the single version had the unfortunate timing of being roughly concurrent with the death of former organist Mick Schauer, who played on that album and that track, the Weathermaker Vault “Electric Worry” does well in capturing a sense of the band’s live performance of it. Likewise that the later, speeded up redo for “Spacegrass.” It’s almost painful to hear Maines‘ holy-of-holies bassline played at anything other than a glacial pace, and the total presentation throughout is almost too clean for its own good in comparison to the danker edge with which that “Whenever it feels right” hook was delivered some 25 years ago, but again, that was 25 years ago, and Clutch take nothing away from what was by giving a reinterpretation to their own material.
The only other album track on Weathermaker Vault Series Vol. 1 is “Smoke Banshee,” originally on 2001’s Pure Rock Fury and it’s the best of the three. That LP has been maligned by some for its rougher-edged production — I’ll argue the “noise factor” is part of its appeal — but there’s no debating the success they bring in terms of fullness of sound in this version of “Smoke Banshee.” If they’re testing the waters for a full-re-recording or full-album live runthrough to mark the record’s 20th anniversary next year, “Smoke Banshee” shows that material might indeed be ripe for a revamp. And I like Pure Rock Fury. A lot.
ZZ Top‘s “Precious and Grace” feels like it might be included to let anyone who didn’t know know that Fallon cribbed the “Good god almighty…” lyric on Elephant Riders‘ “Eight Times Over Miss October” from the Texan outfit, and fair enough, and the Creedence Clearwater Revival cut “Fortunate Son” that presumably closes side A could hardly be a more fitting Clutch song if they wrote it. “Run, John Barleycorn, Run” is another among the slew of quality hooks early on, sat comfortably between “Electric Worry” and “Evil,” and quite possibly the best choice Clutch made as regards Weathermaker Vault Series Vol. 1 was to put “Willie Nelson” last, since invariably that’s the song that would be stuck in the listener’s head when the LP is over anyway. There’s just no escape from that chorus, and the re-recording — it originally appeared on Slow Hole to China and in a different version on the 2004 High Times compilation, High Volume — absolutely nails it.
That, obviously, is spoken as a fan of the band, but if the point hasn’t yet be made, that’s who inevitably will be most concerned with Weathermaker Vault Series Vol. 1 anyhow. It’s for the kind of Clutch listener who’s hoping they announce a holiday-timed ‘Doom Saloon’ live stream to take the place of the usual tour. Clutch have discussed the possibility of recording a new album this winter, but since they they can’t play live as they otherwise invariably would, Weathermaker Vault Series Vol. 1 is an opportunity in the meantime for followers to step forward and show support to the band and the work they’ve put in not only across this year, but for nearly three decades. If you made it this far reading, you probably know that already.
