Album Review: Clutch - Earth Rocker

There was a time when the concept of Clutch releasing a substandard record was laughable. Over their past handful of albums, that concept has come closer and closer to reality. With Earth Rocker, it has arrived. On paper, it sounds like a godsend. After a pair of more blues-focused albums in 2009's Strange Cousins From The West and 2007's From Beale Street To Oblivion, Clutch have decided to return to the heavier and more aggressive sounds of breakthrough albums like 2004's Blast Tyrant. On record, it sounds tired, contrived and kind of hollow.

Clutch have always been something more than just a rock band. Rather than simply regurgitating rock clichés, Clutch embraced them and then twisted them towards their own ends. They managed to fold hip hop, funk and blues into their stoner-rock format without once sounding anything but stone-cold classic. All that personality and idiosyncrasy is gone from Earth Rocker. Once baffling and freewheeling in their invention, Neil Fallon's lyrics now sound dull and lifeless. “If you're gonna do it/Do it live on stage or don't do it at all/If you're gonna do it/You better take it to the stage or don't do it at all” he coughs over the opening title track and, aside from the occasional gem (DC Sound Attack), he doesn't improve.

The rest of the band are similarly perfunctory in their efforts. Even Jean-Paul Gaster, one of the grooviest drummers in all of Christendom and elsewhere, is relatively straightforward in his approach. All in all, it's a dull album that you want to love but really can't.