Black Crowes – By Your Side

It’s easy to imagine that while the neighborhood kids were playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians or any other such sociologically or politically incorrect children’s games, Chris and Rich Robinson had Faces and Stones record jackets littered randomly on the bedroom floor while they were posing and lip-syncing to “Ooh La La” or Exile On Main Street. Now they get to do the same thing for thousands of fans a night.

A lot of superlative-laden ink was spilled in 1990 when the Crowes flew in the face of a musical landscape dominated by “alternative rock” (whatever that is) and released an album of strutting, swaggering rock ‘n’ roll. The trippy thing was that radio played the hell out of Shake Your Moneymaker, and the record-buying youth (plus some of us adults) bought into a sound that, outside of classic-rock stations, hadn’t been heard on radio for quite some time.

However, the last several years had seen the band somewhat distance itself from tightly-wound four-minute rock ‘n’ roll songs, instead extending the breaks into occasionally meandering jams. They headlined H.O.R.D.E.; they still played “Jealous Again”, but it was followed by “High Head Blues”, or “(Only) Halfway To Everywhere”. I was sorely confused, not to mention a tad disappointed.

So consider this a public service announcement for fans of straight-up kick-ass blues-based rock ‘n’ roll: It is once again safe to purchase a Black Crowes record without any apprehension about what it is you’re getting. Apparently producer Kevin Shirley has kicked the boys out of their weeded stupor and helped them deliver what should have been the follow-up to 1992’s The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion.

Going for the throat on the opening “Go Faster”, the rhythm section rips and snorts while Rich (who plays all the guitars here following the, ahem, departure of Marc Ford) slides his way up and down the fretboard and Chris alternately wails on harmonica and nails the vocal. Ditto for the next track and first single, “Kickin’ My Heart Around”.

After that initial one-two punch is a greatly expanded textural landscape. Keyboardist Eddie Harsch has become an integral part of the Crowes sound; witness the McLagan-ish piano runs of the title track. In addition, there are several tracks — “Only A Fool”, “Welcome To The Goodtimes, “Diamond Ring” — where his organ beautifully intertwines with the brass of the Dirty Dozen to provide a Muscle Shoals-inspired backdrop for Chris’ soulful vocals, which, when in turn offset by a chorus of studio singers, brings a revival-tent fervency to a handful tracks.

In the end, though, those ever-present Faces comparisons still linger. I almost expected the songwriting credit on “Then She Said My Name” to read Stewart/Wood or Lane, while the album-closing “Virtue And Vice” sounds like a slowed-down “I m Losing You”. But hey, you could do a hell of a lot worse than nicking Faces riffs.