The cold snap has finally ended. The trees are growing buds, the Canadian geese are heading back north, and the acid freaks are back on the streets. So, there I am walking southbound along College Avenue with a bag of Cara Cara oranges in my hand and a bottle of Coke, full sugar, never diet, in my pocket when who rolls up but my homie Louie. He says I look like a vagrant, I call him a draft dodger, and we laugh; it's a good time. He tells me to hop in, and he takes me down the line back to the pad. On the way, I notice something heavy on the radio, so I ask him. I say, “Louie, what's this on the stereo?” The big man hands me his phone, and I find it's a new single from the Black Crowes. I dig in a little further and find that this is only one of three new tunes meant to tease a new album, “A Pound of Feathers,” coming out March 13th. Obviously, my next move was to pitch a three-for-one review to my editor, and now here we are, ready to rip these new songs apart.
The initial drop came with two of our three tracks, “Profane Prophecy” and “Pharmacy Chronicles.” The first of the two was honestly a bit of a brave choice for the role of opening track. The first song on an album, even if it’s just the first track teasing that album, sets the stage for the whole show. You’re letting us know what’s in store for us, so you better make damn sure you pick a good representative. Now, “Profane Prophecy” is a killer song, but it’s not exactly what I think of when I’m thinking of the Black Crowes. It’s pretty aggressive, bringing to mind the hard rock stylings of Nazareth, if anything. The vocals also have just a smidge too much fuzz on them. It makes them airy and difficult to understand. These are all minor complaints. “Profane Prophecy” rocks as hard as any of these other three songs, but if it were up to me, I would have started this thing off with our next track.
“Pharmacy Chronicles” is textbook Southern Rock. It’s got that haunting Southern Gothic sound that makes it feel like something you would hear in a decaying church during a funeral procession. This is where the Black Crowes shine the brightest. If the absolutely ripping organ wasn’t enough to sell you on this one, the tasty guitar solo will be. It’s a gentle weeping that echoes faintly from another room, adding to the spectral mystique of “Pharmacy Chronicles.” Of the three tunes we’re talking about today, this has to be my favorite.
Finally, we come to our last song, “It’s Like That.” This is the one that I heard in Louie’s piece of crap Camry; it sold me on the whole deal. It’s a fiery, in-your-face tune that leans a little closer towards rock than roll, but hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. “It’s Like That” is a mixture of the two sounds we’ve already heard today. You’ve got that aggressive rock’n’roll from “Profane Prophecy” and a splash of the Southern comfort from “Pharmacy Chronicles.” Now it is closer to “Profane Prophecy” than it is to “Pharmacy Chronicles,” but that’s not to say it dives off the deep end back into the hard rock. What we have here is a standard Black Crowes tune. It’s that classic sound inspired by the likes of the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd that launched the Black Crowes into the limelight in the first place.
All three of these songs are streaming everywhere now, so you can check them out at your leisure. Be careful; they’re going to have to last you another month while we wait on “A Pound of Feathers.” Give them a listen and see what’s hot for yourself. But start with “Pharmacy Chronicles”; trust me, it’s what you want to hear. There will be plenty more where that came from next month. In the meantime, I have to track down Louie. I think I forgot my oranges in his backseat.
