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Review – Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Beat The Devil’s Tattoo

03 09 2010

Review Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Beat The Devils Tattoo

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or BRMC as their legions of fans call them, have been around a while so know their way around a studio and a song. This new album, official release date Tuesday (March 9), is the culmination of their many years slogging it out on ProTools. I have to admit to having a passing familiarity with this band so did a lot of reading about them for this review. Seems these guys have four other albums out there that I am now going to have to check out, especially their instrumental album The Effects of 333. I love instrumentals and feel too many bands don’t explore this format. I would think that instrumentals would be a very freeing way to write because you are not bound by the constraints of the verse/chorus/verse/chorus structure. On the other hand doing an instrumental may just show up the lack of musicianship a band has. But I digress.

The one thing that BMRC does not lack is musicianship. These thirteen songs jump out of the speakers, grab you by the lapels, shake you like a rag doll, throw you to the floor and stomp on you. These are best played loud. There is a lot of noise that comes at you so be prepared to feel like someone took hob-nailed boots to you. Conscience Killer, the second song, is as example of this. It comes at you like a sonic boom. It is hard to believe there are just three musicians in the band. These songs are dense, noisy, dynamic, bluesy, dark and dirty. And no song shows this better than River Styx. I loved it. Where this album let me down was with the quieter, sweeter songs such as Sweet Feeling (although I loved the harmonica), The Toll (I do love the harmonies), and the Lennon-ish Long Way Down (although it got better as it rolled along).

The title track, Beat the Devil’s Tattoo is such a great song, by far my favourite and it somehow found it’s way in heavy rotation on my iTunes playlist. It’s really sets the tone for the whole album with it’s dire lyrics, “There is no peace here, war is never cheap dear/Love will never meet here, it just gets sold for parts/You cannot fight it, all the world denies it/Open up your eyelids, let your demons run”. You just know that this album isn’t for the faint of heart. And is that a resonator that I hear? If it is it’s really great to hear it outside it’s customary country genre. Certainly there is slide guitar going on in there. It’s kind of American folk on drugs. Funnily one of my favourites is also the one that I like the least. For me, Bad Blood, reminded me of U2, you know before they sucked, and that is never a good thing for me, what with never having been a big fan of U2 (with the exception of Zooropa and Pop). But be that as it may, it is also an incredibly catchy tune that I found myself humming throughout the day. Ah, the irony.

Review Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Beat The Devils Tattoo

This album was largely influenced by Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories and the title, Beat The Devil’s Tattoo, comes from an old phrase meaning the beat of a drum or the bleat of a bugle calling soldiers back to camp after dark. No other song on the album embodies this as much as Shadows Keeper, a shadowy, sexual trip into the abyss of wanting. “You feel the fire burnin’ sweet within your skin.” Half State is a pseudo-psychedelic tune where the layered vocals and guitars assault you like a bad drug habit. It’s a great song that I would think is amazing live. The whole album is filled with well-crafted songs that easily bring up comparisons to the Jesus and Mary Chain, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Depeche Mode. It’s moody. It’s calamitous. It’s sombre. It’s ruthless, and it’s really, really good.

The band consists of Peter Hayes (guitar, bass, vocals, harmonica, keys), Robert Levon Been (bass, guitar, vocals, piano), and Leah Shapiro, ex of the Ravonettes (drums, percussion). Shapiro is a new addition taking over from Nick Jago. You can find out everything you need to know about BRMC on their website (one of the most comprehensive I’ve come across). You can also hear the new songs and pre-order the CD on MySpace. You can pre-order Beat The Devil’s Tattoo as well as their other albums on iTunes, Amazon, and don’t forget to check out your local bricks and mortar retailer.

BRMC – Beat The Devil’s Tattoo
BRMC – Conscience Killer

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