Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Beat the Devil’s Tattoo [Review]
After 12 years of playing together, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is a California band that has tried it all and still hasn’t found what it wants. After releasing the maligned “The Effects of 333,” BRMC returns to its roots with Beat the Devil’s Tattoo. However, like a cultural mutt, it can’t quite figure out what style to call home. And unfortunately, on this record, BMRC refuses to do the hard work of creating a coherent, consistent identity.
The record starts out promisingly, with the title track, “Beat the Devil’s Tattoo”, a chant-filled hillbilly stomper, where the vocals follow the minor-tinged guitars and the percussion is provided primarily by the boots of the band. The song iterates between verse lyrics and and “AH-ah-AH-ah” choruses, with more guitars added as the song reaches its climax, a hypnotizing recitation of the song title. A promising start.
The next tune, “Conscience Killer”, is a faux-Stooges rocker that tips its hat to the band’s Wild One motorcycle roots. Unfortunately, for all its “rock”, it gives me a greasy garage-rock-revival feeling that I thought was left back at the beginning of last decade. A brief detour for the brit-pop “Bad Blood” (and more guitar pedals), and the band returns with more stomp. The molasses-paced “War Machine” would be punishing, but for the deep-on-drugs vocals, which seem to have forgotten that the band was supposed to be gritty again on this jam.
After quickly breaking it down for the ladies on the acoustic “Sweet Feeling” (which according to the lyrics, “is gone”), BRMC drops “Evol,” a Jesus & Mary Chain-bitefest that does violence to the legacy of all earlier iterations of the name “Evol.” And as the album progresses, BRMC doesn’t “do” all too much. Mid-tempo rocker. Acoustic breakdown. Brit-Pop jam. Repeat. The album’s closer, “Half-State”, isn’t the impressive hail mary that it was likely designed to be. Instead, it’s like a conversation with too many goodbyes.
If this record was released in the late 90s, with a full run on the British festival circuit, “Beat the Devil’s Tattoo” may have hit my ears differently. But it’s been well over a decade, with a full cycle of progressions and revivals on both sides of the pond. As a result, this record comes off as late to the party, downing the swill from half-empties and searching the fridge for leftovers.
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