Crow Black Chicken

You sometimes have to wonder if bands these days are bothering to seek out and listen to contemporary music or just content themselves with their dad’s or possibly granddad’s album collections. Take the case of Crow Black Chicken, yet another band taking the Zeppelin, Hendrix, Cream template and doing little with it. A classic three piece they have the requisite sound, vocals and probably all the stage moves, but so have many other bands, ploughing this particular furrow.

Opener White Lightning sets the mood; a Freeish workout that’s pleasant enough but derivative even down to the lyrics. Skin Deep chugs away but sounds very lazy rather than laidback. Pourin’ Down follows and we are in Zeppelin Dazed and Confused territory. Electric Soup was quite interesting blues and jazzy workout until the vocals put the mockers on it. Bijou Creole says it all. Murmuration is a heavy slogger of a song and contrasts well with the gentler Lie Awake which follows. But the album eventually peters out with the tiresome Flowers and their own version of John the Revelator.

At over 60 minutes the album’s far too long and very soon songs start to meld into one and grate; it could easily have lost twenty minutes. The main problem is that every guitar lick, bass run and drum fill and vocal pattern has been heard before. Which isn’t in itself a bad thing and dumping on a band for not being original is unfair. Appetite for Destruction was hardly a collection of new riffs, but it had what this album lacks: freshness and attitude.

It’s all done very well, the musicianship is first class and the production sympathetic, but there’s no hint of original thinking in this record. To be fair, this is a debut and this may be old material, so album number two could be the one to watch for.