CLUTCH — The Elephant Riders (review)

CLUTCH — The Elephant Riders album cover Album · 1998 · Stoner Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
UMUR
"The Elephant Riders" is the 3rd full-length studio album by US hard/stoner rock act Clutch. The album was released through Columbia Records in April 1998. It´s the successor to the eponymously titled album from 1995. While Clutch started out as a hardcore band, and their debut album "Transnational Speedway League: Anthems, Anecdotes, and Undeniable Truths (1993)" still featured quite a few hardcore traits, by the time of the eponymously titled 1995 album, Clutch had changed their style towards a hard rock/stoner rock sound.

That style is more or less continued on "The Elephant Riders". Hard rocking riffs and organic rhythms, and Neil Fallon´s commanding powerful voice on top. The band experiment a little with the use of trombone on "Muchas Veces" and "Crackerjack" (...and to great effect on especially the latter), but most of the tracks are relatively simple vers/chorus structured blues based hard rockers. Some more memorable than others, but all tracks are well written and entertaining while they play.

"The Elephant Riders" features a warm, organic, and well sounding production job, which suits the material well. Upon conclusion it´s a quality release in most departments, but the songwriting could have been more memorable, as I don´t remember that many tracks when the album has finished playing. Of course it helps the more spins it gets, but to truly shine all tracks on an album in this style should in my book be more or less instantly memorable, and about half of the 10 tracks on the 51:05 minutes long album aren´t. Still a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.
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