REVIEW - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Just from their name you can pretty much already get a feel for the type of music this band makes--the type of stuff that blares as the camera focuses in on some badass biker with a mullet riding into the sunset, some starry-eyed jailbait hanging off the back. He has a tattoo of some gigantic bird on his shoulder and he just spit out a wad of Skoal. He smells like an odd mix of baby oil and Jim Beam. 

And this is pretty much what you get: bass-driven songs with pulsing fuzz guitar and hard-hitting drums in the forefront, aggressive vocals in the background. It's made for Stones fans--music that your uncle tells you will put hair on your chest. But BRMC cannot be simply passed off as backward-looking regurgitaters of old rock-and-roll clichés; there's something more to their sophomore album, Take Them On, On Your Own. It's in the swelling guitar of their first single, "Stop." It's in the layers of feedback, like a dirty pond that lead singer Robert Turner can only wade through slowly. It's a quick change in tempo that drastically alters the mood. Freshness and experimentation exist throughout the album, and, ultimately, BRMC are successful in distinguishing themselves from those that have influenced them.  

This mixture of something-old-something-new has drawn the inevitable comparisons to bands like the Strokes and the White Stripes. BRMC, however, have a grittier approach than the Stripes, and more emotion and less sing-song than the Strokes. The L.A. trio places more emphasis on composition and less on riff. The track "Suddenly" builds to noisy, swirling climaxes, while the acoustic piece "And I'm Aching" seems to get more and more lost in itself as the track progresses. Perhaps the best song (and the one getting the most airplay, surprisingly) is "Stop," a straight-ahead rocker that brings to mind a young Oasis with its psychedelic vocals and wah-wah guitar. The rest of the album is hard rock with varying degrees of aggression and structure. Each song is similar to all the other songs on the album, but with enough distinctness to keep it from being a repetitive bore.  

So if you aren't ready to buy that Harley quite yet, rev up the engine on your moped, and bring Black Rebel Motorcycle Club along for the ride.