Howlin Rain - Magnificent Fiend (Finally, Some Of Those Nu Dope Weirdos Make An Album I Can Get Behind!)

oh man urnst you will totally be eating your words when you hear the new one:

I gave them a listen. No appeal there for older fans of the cited bands. Maybe if you're an indie guy or gal, it could have some appeal. But virtually zero classic rock vibe. The singer is a painfully white freak-folk collegiate kind of guy. The banjo reminded me of someone trying to make a few licks from "Deliverance" into a pretty song.

-- Urnst Kouch (Urnst Kouch), Friday, June 30, 2006 2:43 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

i didn't hear the last album. this one is totally accomplished. no smirking. no winking. and the vocals sound excellent.

Since I'm a major Humble Pie fan and this band was so dogshit awful on the last thing I heard from them, I'm not chancing any any cash money to test claims of Humble Pie-ness.

if i'm lyin' i'm dyin'

When you're saying it's on American/Columbia, I'm making the assumption, perhaps wrong, that it must be propped up in some manner by Rick Rubin?

somehow, someway, yeah. seeing as how american is his label and he is also, like, the president of Columbia records.

the last record is really good, like blue cheer jamming with the dead. even the cover is great. sample song titles -- "death prayer in heaven's orchard," "the firing of the midnight rain," "indians, whores, and spanish men of gold"

like blue cheer jamming with the dead

There's a double dose of avoid.

I tend towards Scott's views of the two source bands so I don't know...

If I get a promotional copy, I'll give it a fair listen. Or of they're so hot and with push they get a video on one of the modern country music cable outlets, I'll hear 'em. Neither seem very likely scenarios.

i was expecting NOTHING when i got this. zip. zilch. if anything, i was ready to dump on it before i even played it. cuz i've heard soooooooo much bad big label "rock" shit. and indie rock "70's" shit. but, hey, you never know.

Major label modern country records rock. I've nothing against major label material in a rock 'n' roll vein. Actually, I am skeptical of most indie stuff that purports to do this. Labels like Drag City, Birdman ... oh, wait.

this sounds interesting, but one thing that confused me about your post...

i can't think of many rock bands that sound less like each other than comets on fire and explosions in the sky. was it just the "fire" and "explosions" thing that got them mixed up?

i'm not a huge fan of "avatar" but "field recordings from the sun" is an old favorite for me, and i can't imagine how anyone could find it boring. maybe the volume wasn't high enough.

"I've nothing against major label material in a rock 'n' roll vein."

theoretically, neither do i! it's just that most of it is so bad.

"was it just the "fire" and "explosions" thing that got them mixed up?"

pretty much, yeah. and because comets on fire could possibly create explosions in the sky.

"maybe the volume wasn't high enough."

this is never a problem. i just didn't dig whatever albums i heard. no major hate or anything. i got what they were trying to do.

and yeah country gorge i gotcha. like what i said on this thread once:

i don't really have parameters. it just seems like i don't hear anything good from the major label rock world. good r&b, good rap, good country, but not rock.

-- scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, July 5, 2006 5:20 PM

hey writer-types, do you ever get any big label rock records that are worth listening to twice?

my bro mike j is in this band. he is a true bro.

new album is great. first album was great. comets... scott, i can't understand how you might think they were 'boring'. comets were teh awes.

free today at amoeba sf 6pm!

I still didn't hear the new one, and am also (like George) not expecting much, but will listen if a copy happens to fall into my lap. Here's what I wrote about their last one, on my MTV Urge blog at the time; sorry about all the HTML whatchamacallums:

Hipster whippersnappers keep claiming the new <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=3283128";>Comets on Fire</a>
album <i>Avatar</i> (Sub Pop) sounds like Blue Cheer, but it just plain doesn’t. A couple tracks galvanize okay, and the riffs in “Soup Smoke” even turn into Babe Ruth’s spaghetti-western border-metal classic “The Mexican” for half a minute in the middle, but mostly this is just an intermittently comely guitar jam album, rarely rocking and basically mellow, even despite all its feedback. The vocals are way too muffled, and there ain’t no songs. Freak-folk, maybe, but it wouldn’t fly on the parchman farm.

Heck, the new CD by
<a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=58832337";>Cactus</a> called <i>V</i> (Escapi) has more memorable songs than the Comets (see “High in the City,” “Electric Blue,” and “Gone Train Gone” for ZZ/Zep/Jimi protoplasm), and it’s a total mess and they’re like 100 years old! The Comets could also take boogie lessons from suburban New York’s excellent and prolific <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=43508147";>The Lizards</a>, whose new <i>Against All Odds</i> (Hyperspace) is their most blatantly funk and prog and grunge (in an STP sense) set yet, with one track that even swings like Beck-Bogert-Appice’s 1973 heavifying of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” Or maybe from <a href="http://cdbaby.com/cd/mattmccourt";>Fatt Matt McCourt</a>’s <i>Southern Fried Metal</i> (US Metal), good-humored grease-chain rock about drinking alone and missing the old days when men were bikers and dangerous stuff was less dangerous and barbecued guitar-twang instrumentals were in fashion. Or perhaps from Jersey axemaster <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=33809368";>Matt O’Ree</a>, whose recent interactive sampler EP conclusively proves he recalls those days as well. As do onetime country stars <a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=75477359";>the Kentucky Headhunters</a>, whose new <i>Flying Under the Radar</i> (CBUJ/Koch) selects the best Southern soul-rock from their three previous collections (including the unbelievably beautiful “Back to the Sun” and unbelievably ferocious “Big Boss Man” and a dance number about doing the jerk and watusi and another tune that crosses John Anderson with Georgia Satellites) and hence ranks with any album released in 2006 by anybody.
Heck, were Comets on Fire even <i>alive</i> in the ‘70s? Maybe they oughta just leave the boogie to the geezers.

avatar is a mellow comets on fire jam though, in fairness, kinda ez listenin' for them. but it's not the most brain melting by any stretch.

although i still swear i hear him sing "simonize the bong" in one song so if so he gets a pulitzer

howin rain is much better than comets on fire.

Actually, yeah, that review was Comets On Fire, duh. But here's what I wrote on that same blog about the previous Howlin Rain album:

<a href="http://www.birdmanrecords.com/howlinrain/index.html";>HOWLIN RAIN</a>
<i>Howlin Rain</i> (Birdman) Ethan Miller from Comets on Fire attempts a shambling Southern plantation-porch choogle-metal thing, sort of like Humble Pie or the Black Crowes without the songs, though lines about liquor in formaldehyde jars and whorehouses and drinking beer all afternoon oozes out. Pretty at times, but ultimately too amorphous and incoherent.

i dunno about the first howlin' rain, this new one is fucking terrible. c'mon, if these dudes weren't underground pedigreed they'd be opening for trey anastasio and medeski, martin and wood.

i like it.

Totally disagree with Gott, on board with Scott. I generally avoid six minute tracks that mention hangmen, but these are songs, not jams, and I find the singing affecting. I get Traffic more than Humble Pie, in that there's some eccentric arrangements between the belting. The experimental and harder-edge roots of this band might be what lifts this record above jam rock. Like how Little Feat were Magic Band alum. Never got much out of Comets on Fire. The production is really good and unfussy too.

my new practice space mates! at least I think so

i didn't hear the last album. this one is totally accomplished. no smirking. no winking. and the vocals sound excellent.

-- scott seward, Sunday, 13 January 2008 00:19 (1 month ago) Link

my first thought when I saw this thread: "wait, 'finally'? why the hell couldn't seward get behind the first Howlin' Rain album?"

suffice it to say, they are both extremely get-behindable. these dudes are gonna be here next month the day after the Dirtbombs and I will probably wear the same pair of underwear to both shows so I can just soil them twice and cut down on the amount of laundry I have to do.

they killed live btw

<i>will probably wear the same pair of underwear to both shows so I can just soil them twice and cut down on the amount of laundry</i>

Hey, they're Howlin' Rain, not Castor Oil.

Or Fleet's Phospho-Soda.

so, like, is this supposed to be a BAD review?...cos', he says it's silly, second-tier, compares it to Nazareth, Uriah Heep and Wishbone Ash...this record totally woulda made the cut when I moved out of my mother's house!

HOWLIN RAIN

“Magnificent Fiend”

(American/Birdman)

This is a very silly record. Lots of young bands are deeply enthusiastic about early ’70s rock, but Howlin Rain puts the others to shame. It mines a shallower level: second-tier mannerism and cliché.

One way to act around clichés, if you’re a rock musician whose work refers to an earlier period, is to avoid them. Another is to round up several thousand of the more homely ones, marry them all at once, tattoo their names on your body and live in bliss through the hard times. This is closer to what Howlin Rain does.

Ethan Miller, the superenthusiastic singer, songwriter and guitarist of this sextet, has played for most of this decade with another band, Comets on Fire. But where that band is weird and austerely dedicated to tribal freak-out, Howlin Rain is comforting and good-timey. It makes a type of music you may have heard in bait-and-tackle shops and the backs of school buses, or maybe during lulls in the commercial-free rock block on your FM station. It is precisely B-list hard rock, like Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep, Nazareth.

Unlike Black Mountain, another current band with a ’70s fixation, Howlin Rain is not facile or cold. Mr. Miller puts on a haggard, soul-man rock voice, as inauthentic as Chris Robinson’s from the Black Crowes but wilder and uglier. The songs are written handsomely, and with effort: solemn introductions, multiple gear-shifting bridges, cruising solo passages. They’re miles more accomplished than the songs on the band’s self-titled first album from two years ago, though that one had a more rickety, excited vibe, with guitar fuzz like sonic vandalism. The new album, made with a revamped band behind Mr. Miller, is smoothed out, almost commercial by comparison.

Mr. Miller plays his heart out, as does the band. He sings lines like “the wind calls the hangman to my name” and “Ruby, I chased your laughter with elephant wings,” a slurry of stoner poetry. All of it may remind you not of a venerable old record, but of one that was bought cheap and didn’t make the cut when you had to move your stuff out of your mom’s house. BEN RATLIFF

Nazareth, Uriah Heep

Were first-tier bands, for whatever it's worth.

haha I haven't heard this yet but I lolled when I saw they named a track after some Moorcock books

holla

baby, lord, baby, lord, baby, lord...

Wishbone Ash - Argus is a classic. As is the live album. 1st tier rock to my ears.

there is no higher praise than to classify a record as something you might hear in a bait-and-tackle shop...

tsss Comets On Fire's Blue Cathedral is a total classic

i think i like this as well, only heard some snippets though

so, like, is this supposed to be a BAD review?

I don't read it as negative. Ethan Miller has said that his intent with Howlin Rain is to make rock that sounds great while driving around in a van.

saying a record ain't worth moving out of your mom's house = negative, in my book

It mines a shallower level: second-tier mannerism and cliché.

pretty obviously negative

Just makes me want to hear it even more. I enjoyed the 1st album.

x-post

you guys are right.

i meant to say I don't take it as a negative, considering Miller seems to be consciously striving for these things (i.e., wanting music to sound good while driving around in a van).

yeah, I guess the NYTimes is not the place to read valid commentary about bands like Howlin Rain...I mean, I've never seen so many ill-advised attempts at critical slander this side of Q magazine!

Ratliff's a good reviewer. I had no problem with that review. He knows his shit when it comes to this type of music.

my review was too long (i'm with you paperthinwalls readers!) and not great, but very positive all the same:

http://www.paperthinwalls.com/singlefile/item?id=1375

I STILL LIKE THIS RECORD.

for the record.

oh and you can download a song on their site too.

good tip scott. this one might be even better than the first one. prime mix of choogle choogle and psych

The new album, made with a revamped band behind Mr. Miller, is smoothed out, almost commercial by comparison.

Translation: Compelled to fire band by major label. Hired some journeymen or ringers and they can play better.

He sings lines like “the wind calls the hangman to my name” and “Ruby, I chased your laughter with elephant wings,” a slurry of stoner poetry

Translation: If you listen to the lyrics you won't be able to suppress your tittering, spoiling the mood of the music. So don't listen to the lyrics. Did anyone listen to the lyrics to "The Magician's Birthday"? I don't think so.

pretty good live shows. my bro bros down with these bros.

the new band are locals from his hometown

local bros

sound on this is bad, but they look like they would be fun to see live. especially if you were good and drunk. and i mean that in a good way:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2QSI85G3MDM

this is good too. better sound also:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ikr8OovhsNs

hey i listened to two songs off this album on their myspace and boy it's pretty nice, i like it...

is this coming out on vinyl? seems like a vinyl type of album

Well-- They didn't play Calling Lightning when I saw them a few months ago.. What's the point then? The noise needs to stay man.

its already out on vinyl

cool

It mines a shallower level: second-tier mannerism and cliché.

that sentence is pretty much right on.

will they be dropped after this one or the next one, do you think?

<i>local bros</i>

<i>hey i listened to two songs off this album on their myspace and boy it's pretty nice, i like it</i>

Best damned-by-faint-praise thread in a couple months, easy. As Mr. Hand once said, "Are you on dope?!"

i just got another copy of this record today in the mail. now i have two. maybe they will send me the vinyl next month.

Someone has to bring it up: Not only damned-by-faint-praise but double-duty as hard rock for those not liking of hard rock, with the usual handful of exceptions to the rule.

Yeah, the New York Times -- good review, mediocre notings or pans -- knows hard rock. And I'm Ernest Hemingway.

It makes a type of music you may have heard in bait-and-tackle shops

Bait-and-tackle shops in Manhattan. What're they fishing for? Mercury-poisoned sea robins?

When's the new Wolfmother come out? If I were in promotion at their record company I'd be a little worried. Usually, there's only one major league charity case dispensation every couple of years made for retro attempting bigtime outside of CMT. Before Wolfmother there was Kings of Leon and that appears to be ending in tears.

the times is always pretty snooty. i expect nothing less from my paper of record.

i have no idea if this album will hit or miss. i don't really care. it probably will miss. most rock records do these days. i still find it enjoyable. it's not as good as the last five horse johnson album though. now THAT was a great record. i really do like the comets guy's vocals a bunch on this record. have to say it again. he really does go for it. someone somewhere compared him to the singer of widespread panic. but i've never heard them.

AND DON'T WORRY GOTT PUNCH THEY HAVE A NEW RECORD COMING OUT *JUST* FOR YOU YOU FREAK FOLKER YOU:

"Along with Lee Ranaldo, Magik Markers, Charalambides' Tom Carter, Bardo Pond, and a few others, Howlin Rain will contribute a disc to Three Lobed Recordings' "Oscillation III" subscription series. Howlin Rain's offering, titled Wild Life, features a pair of tunes clocking in at a quarter-hour or so. The first is a jam on the song by Wings (you know, the band that made Paul McCartney famous) that the set is named after, while the second is a "completely improvised piece with heavy jazz fusion and free, Latin jazz rock overtones" titled "Black Sangria"."

i think i'll pass on that one myself.

Sample lyric: Hold the dogs at bay/Your laughter was a lover that ran today/I tried to wield a greater blade/But all you lions can keep your bloody pride.

Platitudes are the Sundays of stupidity, someone once said.

We can all have a big laugh a year from now at this puffed-up line from the altie press.

Magnificent Fiend condenses the struggle among good, evil, and otherwise — one that's been repeated from the Bible down on through Michael Douglas movies — into one of 2008's most essential records.

This shit's so awful and over the top, it's difficult not to read it as satire.

I think I'm going to do a Lexis trawl for a Google stink bomb of purple prose and quotes singing the praise of Howlin Rain. Like with Wolfmother, the machine's in motion and unstoppable now.

And I thought highly of Drunk Horse once.

wtf are you even talking about?

He's in georgeworld again

Totally forgot Birdman was a major subsidiary and so didn't clock that that might factor in anything. I like this record for what it is, though, based on first couple of plays

wtf are you even talking about?

From you and Lethbridge-Stewart, I'll take those as compliments.

Here, see if you can get this one, it's much better than "fuck you": There's been a great feast of languages but you've stolen only the scraps.

woah

anyway, i dont think howlin rain make tunes for dudes like you, gorge.

people be angry

ANGRY ABOUT ROCK MUSIC

dudes!...let's not forget that Howlin Rain is comforting and good-timey...

(Ethan Miller would be very disappointed that we've stooped to such levels)

Random Insults
http://www.randominsults.net/

Sit down, give your mind a rest - it obviously needs it.

-- djmartian, Thursday, 6 March 2008 13:09 (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^^^glad this post wasn't totally in vain

haha