xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxggggggggggggggi

MUCH like the Strokes, who also released their debut album in 2001, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have never recaptured the magic of their first and most acclaimed LP. But unlike their more famous retro rock’n’roll contemporaries, this LA trio are born outsiders. Just take their name, borrowed from a motorcycle gang in The Wild One, or their clothes all in, well, you can guess which colour.

Poignancy abounds on BRMC’s tour in support of sixth album Specter At The Feast, their first since the death in 2010 of bassist/vocalist Robert Been’s father Michael – BRMC’s sound engineer, himself a musician in the 1980s with the Call. Indeed, it was a cover of one of Been snr’s songs that opened tonight – a suitably sleazeified take on Let The Day Begin.

Following the doomy drones of Red Eyes And Tears, the likes of Hate The Taste and the stomping Beat The Devil’s Tattoo quickly typified how the blues have come to define BRMC almost as much as a sound summed up none better than by the appropriately self-descriptive Whatever Happened To My Rock’n’Roll (Punk Song).

Hide Ad

But while much still swaggers where Been and fellow founder member and guitarist Peter Hayes step, there’s a thoughtful and reflective feel to new material. “Thanks for being there for us,” declared Been heartfeltly before Returning – which set a more downbeat and down tempo tone for a lot of what followed in the second-half, through ultimately to dreamily anthemic eight-minute closer Lose Yourself. Much of which complemented, if never quite competed with, first album bedrocks White Palms, Stop and the bass-quake of Spread Your Love.

MALCOLM JACK