Chris Robinson Brotherhood: Big Moon Ritual (Warners)

 |   |  <1 min read

Chris Robinson Brotherhood: 100 Days of Rain
Chris Robinson Brotherhood: Big Moon Ritual (Warners)

Robinson is frontman for the Black Crowes, the band which married the Allman Brothers' soulful Southern rock with a stoner take on the shambling Faces but more recently slid into post-Band country-rock with their excellent Before the Frost recorded live in the late Levon Helm's studio.

Robinson's solo albums have been of no fixed focus but drew on Americana, rock and country and songs often tripped-out at length. Which means this -- with yet another band – wouldn't surprise longtime followers: nothing is shorter than seven minutes and the opener Tulsa Yesterday clocks in at a yawning 12.

This is mostly languid, prog-country rock – the cover is like a Yes album – but for every meandering piece there's another to catch your breath, notably the exceptional, nine minute-plus Star or Stone which has the weariness of Dylan's I Shall be Released or the Stones' Wild Horses with cryptic lyrics about prophecy and dying, or the equally slow, possibly autobiographical 100 Days of Rain.

With guitarist Neal Casal (Ryan Adams' Cardinals) and electric keyboard player Adam MacDougall providing drifting accompaniment, Robinson occasionally delivers something special.

But mostly this is for an audience which is horizontal.

Or soon will be.

Like the sound of this? Then check out this.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Over the Rhine: The Long Surrender (GDS)

Over the Rhine: The Long Surrender (GDS)

After a series of fine albums, Ohio's Over the Rhine here -- with sympathetic producer Joe Henry – deliver their most sophisticated album to date, one with an ear on their European-cabaret... > Read more

Kanye West, 808s and Heartbreak (RocAFella)

Kanye West, 808s and Heartbreak (RocAFella)

Because I don't listen to much of the over-produced, schmaltzy, ululating music that passes for r'n'b these days (in my old-fashioned definition I still link r'n'b to the soul of Otis, Sam Cooke... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

BETWEEN THE LIVES: PARTNERS IN ART edited by DEBORAH SHEPARD REVIEWED (2005): Lives in the margins

BETWEEN THE LIVES: PARTNERS IN ART edited by DEBORAH SHEPARD REVIEWED (2005): Lives in the margins

An intimate relationship between creative people may be as volatile and destructive as it can be productive and rewarding. And almost inevitably one partner, for reasons of success or force of... > Read more

FISTFUL OF VINYL: Records ride back over the horizon

FISTFUL OF VINYL: Records ride back over the horizon

A true coincidence? Within half an hour of speaking with my son in London about some wonderful on-line world which allows streaming access to what seems like a billion songs, a familiarly shaped... > Read more