BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB

same

CD, Virgin

Even though this CD might be the #1 at your favourite alternative radio station and was swept onto shore in wake of the Strokes-Hype, this one is really good. It takes that place as a starting point were Jesus and the Mary Chain stopped doing what the Rolling Stones did and they do that a little more. And if bands like BRMC, Strokes and White Stripes start a new wave of rocking bands with long hair, black clothes and over-fuzzed e-guitars, I won’t complain any.

Sure, this is the time were I started opening up towards electronic music a little, even the loungey or ambient-pop-variety of it, as you can see in the reviews- and music-section of this website, but my heart, I guess, still lies with electric guitars. Maybe my heart lies with any music that has some heart in it, just because of fraternity, but that might be as it is. The Black Rebel Motor Cycle Club offers eleven straightforward songs with fuzzy guitars, steady drumbeats, lots of amps and tuned down melodies to boost. Just like a solid rock-album should. And this one leaves not a lot of wishes open. Actually, any record does, that is why I said “not a lot”.

The hit comes at #3 and is “Whatever happened to my rock’n’roll (punk song)” and that question could be interpreted as programmatic. Some time ago there was a lot of energy, there was raw noise and beats, and people sweated on stage as the manually banged on their instruments. Nowadays everybody is over thirty years old, sips cocktails and talks about French or Japanese movies. Where did all the energy, the action, the rebellion go? I don’t think that B.R.M.C. offer too much of any of these mentioned, but there is quite a nice share to make you reminiscing. So, do I pack them in with all the NY/US-rock-bands that play fuzzed guitars, use melodies and strife somewhere between basic blues and punk and always seem to come and go in a steady dribble. I have quite a collection of them in my mind: Zen Guerilla, Chrome Cranks, Laughing Hyenas, Penthouse, Thee Hypnotics and I haven’t heard anything from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in a long time.

B.R.M.C. are not as raw and noisy as the ones mentioned above, but that might owe just the same to the record label as to the zeitgeist. See, we live in a designed time, in which communication gets marketed the same way food or clothes do and it is all just one big web of interconnecting brand-images and cross-promotions. And before we start to ask us, where, for instance, the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club does fit into that web, we should ask ourselves, where we personally fit into that web. The first question is just taking up the work of PR/marketing managers. The other one is where the real important part come in.

Don’t expect too much of the BRMC in anyway. The record is nice to hear, the songs have a melancholic edge that triggers all the JAMC-connections (especially in the outro of “White Palms”), and you’ll listen to that record over and over again for sure. Some of the hooks and riffs and melodies will stay in your brain after the first listening, other will take a little longer. The booklet is filled with cool fotos of the trio strutting down NY-streets and playing foggy rock-stages. This is rock to make you lean back in your easy chair and relax. So, a revolution? No siree-bob. I don’t think so.

02/2002