The Black Crowes’ reunion couldn’t have been more badly timed. Announcing the news in late 2019, the Robinson Brothers, who hadn’t spoken to each other for six years before burying the hatchet, confirmed a continent-straddling 45-date tour of North America, scheduled to kick off the following June. Following the announcement, Chris and Rich Robinson were asked and among other things if there were plans for an album after the tour.
“I don’t know,” Chris told us. “Yeah. Maybe. I definitely think Rich and I will write songs together in our future. I don’t know how, when and where. But if Rich has songs, I’m down to hear them and do what I do. But I don’t think we can do that until we see how this goes.”
The tour was shelved and, given the often fractious and historically fragile nature of the siblings’ relationship, fans could be forgiven for wondering if the band might ever resurface. But, in late July 2021, The Black Crowes finally got the “Shake Your Money Maker” tour under way. Over the course of the next two years they played more than 100 shows. It did go well. And they did record that album.
“Happiness Bastards” is our love letter to rock’n’roll,” said Chris, announcing the news in January this year. “This album is a continuation of our story as a band,” Rich added.
It sounds like both. The Black Crowes’ first album of new material since 2009’s “Before The Frost… Until The Freeze” is an absolute peach. It’s lean, an album of real purpose. Bands usually stretch out and relax as they age, but this collection of songs is fierce. Songs get to the point quickly; no messing around. And they rock.
Opener “Bedside Manners” rattles along like the Faces playing Saturday night at the rowdiest of roadside honky-tonks. “Rats And Clowns” winds into gear quickly before propelling itself along like an out-take from “Highway To Hell”. “Cross Your Fingers” begins with deftly picked acoustic guitar, but by the 40-second mark it’s transformed into a taut rocker, wrapped around the kind of riff that might result if you put Jimmy Page and Joe Perry in a room and told them not to come out until they’d come up with something truly worthwhile.
The ghost of Malcolm Young appears again on “Wanting And Waiting’s” glam-shuffle verses, before the chorus arrives and takes it to the church. “Dirty Cold Sun” struts and swaggers. “Bleed It Dry” is hauled along by the filthiest of overdriven slide guitar riffs, a blues teetering on the edge of chaos and collapse. “Flesh Wound” is genuine power-pop, as if The Replacements have hooked up with Andrew W.K. to cover Cheap Trick. In a bar. During a riot. “Follow The Moon” swoops and swaggers, powered by the slinkiest of riffs, enlightened by a slide guitar worthy of Gregg Allman and lifted towards the heavens by the most celestial of choruses.
Honestly, it’s a miracle. Just when you think you’ve picked your favourite track, along comes another. Only on the lovely “Wilted Rose” – featuring vocals from country star Lainey Wilson – and poignant closer “Kindred Spirit” do the band do their more relaxed, ‘side two of Sticky Fingers’ thing.
You’ve heard all this before. The Stones. Zeppelin. Free. Aerosmith. The Allman Brothers. Etc. But throw in the handclaps, the gospel backing vocals, the Hammond organ, Chris Robinson’s gift for a vocal delivery that’s both ragged and righteous, and an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm, and you’re left with an album that doesn’t land too far short of their first two. It crackles with an electricity that belies the age of those involved (the band formed 40 years ago, do the math), and is a genuine return to form, in an age when many releases described as such are nothing of the sort.
“Happiness Bastards” is the sound of men getting stuff out of their systems, and having a ball as they do so. And for all the plaudits afforded the Robinsons’ post-split, pre-reunion bands, Rich’s The Magpie Salute and the Chris Robinson Brotherhood always felt like stopgaps, however sincere the ambition of those involved. The reunion is proof, if it were needed, that some things are truly more than the sum of their parts.
And therein lies the miracle of “Happiness Bastards“. After all those battles, all that rancour, all that violence, all that arguing over “horrible, stupid shit”, all those years lost to acrimony and bitterness, The Black Crowes sound completely undiminished. And everybody should know it.
The Fat Angel Sings 