The Black Crowes – Before The Frost…/…Until The Freeze

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impulse buy

Silver Arrow Records
Produced by Paul Stacey

Recorded live in front of a small audience of fans at country legend Levon Helm’s studios in Woodstock The Black Crowes are trying to offer something special in their 20th year as a follow-up to last year’s comeback album Warpaint.

Purchasers of the eleven-track new CD, which is packaged nicely in a gatefold vinyl-replica sleeve, including inner paper sleeve, also get a small sticker of the band’s “Cabin Fever Winter 2009″ artwork (below) and a plastic card printed with a code giving them access to a second, nine-track album called …Until The Freeze for free from the band’s website in a choice of a quality format (FLAC) and a worthless one (mp3). Collectors may be slightly unhappy that the option to buy a double-disc edition of the album including … Until The Freeze is available (although there is a deluxe double vinyl edition), but the Crowes can’t be faulted for their efforts to reward the fans. Espeically given that the albums are guaranteed to be shared on the internet within hours of their release.

The recordings don’t suffer at all in terms of sonic quality as a result of the live setting; sounding crisp and clear, retaining the raw feel without compromising on clarity. They could have done without the audience applause during the fade-outs though. After Warpaint turned out to be a largely mellow affair many Crowes fans were hoping for more of a return to the band’s bluesy rock beginnings with the next album, but initials signs from opener Good Morning Captain don’t indicate that; standard mellow Crowes rock ‘n’ roll for three-and-a-half minutes.

Been A Long Time (Waiting On Love) kicks off with a heavy blues riff, but mellow verses seem to continue in the same vein as Good Morning Captain until the last three minutes spin out into an eight-minute blues jam and signs suddenly start to look good for some classic Crowes variation after all. None more so than the disco grooves of I Ain’t Hiding, which is probably the biggest departure the Crowes have taken in their career. The story of the album is lively upbeat grooves mixed up with delicate folk, like Make Glad and the Madness lilt of And The Band Played On… for the former, What Is Home? and magnificent closing ballad The Last Place That Love Lives for the latter, presenting a much broader picture of the Crowes influences than Warpaint did.

Unfortunately (for some) what you get with the second album is far from more of the same. …Until The Freeze very much represents the folk and country side of The Black Crowes and although these are still first class songs of their kind, it’s a far less appealing listen to a Crowes fan than Before The Frost…. Garden Gate is basically a line-dancing track, for example. The highlight is by far the soulful ballad Lady of Avenue A. But you can’t really complain when those tracks are free.

What you’re paying for here, the CD album, is superb. It’s a much better effort than Warpaint and hopefully their live set will benefit. But that will involve them picking the right tracks to play live, and certainly not playing almost the whole album like they did with Warpaint. If they mix the grooving tracks with the soft ones their set should still be dynamic and exciting as they’ve almost always been, but if they lean too far towards the material on …Until The Freeze they could end up with a lot of fans coming away unhappy. They’ll be fine if they mix it up, as they’ve done on Before The Frost…. Brilliant.

“ lively upbeat grooves mixed up with delicate folk ”

Before The Frost… Tracklist: Good Morning Captain / Been A Long Time (Waiting On Love) / Appaloosa / A Train Still Makes A Lonely Sound / I Ain’t Hiding / Kept My Soul / What Is Home / Houston Don’t Dream About Me / Make Glad / And The Band Played On… / The Last Place That Love Lives
…Until The Freeze Tracklist: Aimless Peacock / Shady Grove / Garden Gate / Greenhorn / Shine Along / Roll Old Jeremiah / Lady of Avenue A / So Many Times / Fork In The River

Artwork: Alan Forbes | www.secretserpents.com

Written by Andy Lye
More: Albums, Non-metal, Rock, The Black Crowes