Your track-by-track guide to the new Clutch album, ‘Strange Cousins From The West’. Come in to check it out!

Motherless Child

Opening with a bayou-inspired slide guitar line and featuring off-kilter drum syncopations, it’s a strange bluesy opener from the men from Maryland. The groove can be described as awkward yet captivating. It’s worth noting that the guitars are beefier than they were on ‘From Beale Street…’.

Struck Down

Sounding similar to the material on ‘Robot Hive/Exodus’, ‘Struck Down’ is all strutting-guitars, solid play from the rhythm section and Southern, grooving vocals from Neil Fallon. There’s little of the huge vocal hooks that you expect from Clutch at this juncture but there’s still plenty of the band’s trademark hip-swinging grooves and funk-laden swagger.

50,000 Unstoppable Watts

HUGE guitars on this one. It’s all about the rumbling, rolling riffs here. The track has already been made available online so you can judge for yourself but the six-string work is nothing short of smokin’ for the track’s duration.

Abraham Lincoln

Subtle snare drums usher in a thundering, sassy low-end riff. As you’d expect with Clutch, they’ve tried something different yet again, this time it’s something remarkably simplistic by their standards but the skin work from Jean-Paul Gaster is astounding and keeps things absolutely riveting. Great stuff.

Minotaur

‘Strange Cousins For the West’ is shaping up to be the most simplistic Clutch album to date. It’s not a criticism, just an observation. Most songs on the record thus far circumnavigate around a basic riff or rhythm. The band seem content to let their own musicianship provide subtle variations throughout each track. ‘Minotaur’ is a great example of this. It has to be said, the riff that greets the song’s chorus is a monster.

The Amazing Kreskin

So cool it could be used in a Tarantino flick, the lazy, summertime vibe of ‘The Amazing Kreskin’ is an album highlight. Wah-pedals, screeching guitars and effortless, head-bobbing riffs are the order of the day here. The double-bass drum work throughout the song is truly stunning.

Witchdoctor

Solid is the accurate description for ‘Witchdoctor’. Again, it’s a very basic track and everything formulates around the simplistic template set in the track’s opening bars.

Let A Poor Man Be

Ye gods! The guitar solo towards the tail end of this one is all kinds of awesome. Indeed, the fretwork throughout ‘SCFTW’ is stellar, some of the best of Tim Sult’s career as is proven…

Freakonomics

…all the way through this belter. Man, this one has a party vibe not heard from Clutch on their past few records. It’s a real hell-raiser, not in terms of heaviness but in terms of the good-time feelings that drip from Neil Fallon’s mammoth vocal hooks and the playful musicianship shown. Track of the album, no doubt.

Also Ha Cambiado

A cover of the Poppo’s Blues Band original. Fallon sings in Argentinean here and it’s a rollicking end to the record. Possibly the most energetic thing on the album, ‘Also Ha Cambiado’ has plenty of widdl six-string work and the climax of the track is scorching.

Clutch release ‘Strange Cousins From The West’ on July 6th. The band will also be rocking HMS Hammer as part of this year’s almighty Golden Gods on June 15th. Joining them will be Anthrax, Malefice and Trigger The Bloodshed.