Howlin Rain Album Review
A Head Full of Mescaline and a Gut Full of Jack
Howlin Rain, the 2006 debut album by the San Franciscan band of the same name, is like the return to civilisation of an old friend who has spent a week wandering California’s Death Valley, with nothing for company other than a guitar, a quart of Jack Daniels and a boot-heel full of mescaline.
Yes indeed, setting aside an inveterate prejudice of this writer and breaking the cardinal rule within the HFoS camp, we once again take tentative steps into the often seizure-inducing territories of “modern music”. But hang on just one ruddy minute there. It appears that in our eagerness (honest) to sample some of this so-called “modern music”, we’ve caused a Doctor Who-style rift in time and space and landed right back in the altogether more pleasing era of the early-70s.
Howlin Rain harks back to a time and music defined by groups such as The Byrds, Poco and to a certain extent the over-commercialised Eagles, throwing in the best elements of psychedelic garage bands such as The 13th Floor Elevators, The Bubble Puppy and Kaleidoscope (US), for good measure.
This heady mixture of the psychedelic, blues and country rock wears its late 60s/early 70s West Coast sound with obvious pride, like a thick layer of dust and grime earned during those days of enlightenment in Death Valley. The spirits of not only Dennis Wilson, but Gene Clark and every other Golden state musician who lived fast, made their presence felt, then died before their time, lurk deep beneath the sonic tapestry that Howlin Rain weave.
The eight songs on Howlin Rain keep firmly to the darker side of the trail, touching on the imagery of death throughout, amidst sudden bursts of psychedelic distortion, rattling banjos and sultry slide guitar. In places, particularly on the epic ‘Calling Lightening with a Scythe’, they sound like the Rollng Stones doing and impression of Primal Scream doing an impression of the Rolling Stones (do Primal Scream ever do anything else?) during their early-70s country rock phase. The opener ‘Death Prayer in Heaven’s Orchard’ is a triumph of fire and brimstone, and the closer ‘The Firing of the Midnight Rain’ is outlaw music, riding into town, shooting up the bar and quickly leaving in a sunbaked cloud of dust and buckshot.
Howlin Rain as good as fell into my lap. I came to it with eyes closed, completely unaware of the band beforehand. And if the truth be known I still know next to nothing about them. What I do know is I like this album, and to me that’s all that ruddy matters.
So if the relentless heat of the Californian sun and perhaps a touch of brain-frying sunstroke doesn’t faze you, grab a bottle of Jack, bite down on a button of peyote and let Howlin Rain do the rest.
Howlin Rain is released by Birdman Records and available from Amazon.co.uk
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