Baby 81

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are coming back to their primordial sound

We are all lucky to live in the era of total musical availability. The abundance of groups surely creates a problem of choice, but on the other hand this diversity hides piles of good albums. You may be unaware that this of that band exist when their album falls into your hands and turns out to be that thing you always wanted to find. And then you start inquiring, searching and listening to realize that you have started an acquaintance with the band with their best release. So if you are not familiar to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club than it is good time to start with the band now. Their new album Baby 81 became that very thing that shaped their style into a confident and easy for apprehension rock form. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club never were a mediocre band, their first two albums have put the band in one rank with such bands as The Strokes and Kings Of Leon and were quite popular among indie rockers. But their third release turned out to be a stylistic experiment and caused some contradictions. The band rejected the energetic rock in favor of soft acoustic Americana. The album was perceived well by critics and attracted crowds of new fans but those who knew the band for a long time took it with a lesser enthusiasm. Many expected that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club will continue working in this direction but musicians decided to cast a pretence away and turned their faces back to the primordial sound.

New songs have a powerful supply of energy

Baby 81 is a solid rock album with lots of crunchy guitars, powerful drumming and an impressive rebellious spirit. The musicians don't waist time and give the album a straightforward swaggering opening with Took Out A Loan. This is a simple electro blues song, but it has a peculiar feel of catchy danger, good enough to slake your musical adrenaline thirst. The song is followed by a faster piece called Berlin, which turned out to be one of the most attractive foot stomping tracks here. The band puts layers of fuzz guitar riffs atop powerful mid tempo drums and dilutes the tension with unceremonious yet engaging vocals. Weapon Of Choice is another great raw rock single - huge and bold. It offers an infectious acoustically driven push and overloaded chorus. Actually there are no songs devoid of inner energy even acoustic parts sound powerfully. Listen to the 666 Conducer, there is something mystical in its Led Zeppelin like slow flow of massive beats and guitar strumming. The most bland and sleepy songs appear by the end of the album, both American X and Am I Only hypnotize your mind with their fuzzy structures and atmosphere, which is meditative, mystic and heavy at the same time.   

Babe 81 may attract crowds of new fans

Besides the advantages concerning the material itself, the album has a whole set of additional positive qualities. The arrangements are simple but full and polished and the overall sound is dark, dirty but unbearably attractive. In fact this is a combination of polished parties and rollicking sound that makes Baby 81 so catchy. The stylistic term that could fit this music is probably melodic hard indie rock. The album is raw and energetic but at the same time it has a lot of blandness. There are obvious influences of every Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's previous albums. It has the same luster as Howl but it is not that slick and there is the indie lofi swampy sound of their first records but it doesn't sound that sludgy, the album absorbed best experience and refused from the former feeble ideas. Actually the old fans won't be astonished with the way new albums sounds but they will be glad to find this band coming back to their original style with this obviously refined approach. And as it was said earlier Baby 81 is that very thing that is good to start listening to this band, so if you never heard Black Rebel Motorcycle Club before just give them a chance they won't disappoint you.