Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Clutch: "Earth Rocker"

Not a big fan of lyric videos, as I've espoused many times before, but if they absolutely must exist Clutch is one of the few rock bands where I feel like knowing the words is intrinsic to my enjoyment of the material (*). "Earth Rocker" is pretty punchy but shows the band sliding into a more commercial direction; this is easily the most accessible thing they've released since "The Mob Goes Wild". I wouldn't be too troubled if you prefer Clutch's more esoteric side though: I doubt "Earth Rocker" is any more a signal that the band is chasing a platinum record any more than "The Mob Goes Wild" turned out to be.

(*) Many have put forth the opinion that the lyrics are just an integral part of the song as any other element since it was the artist's intent for you to approach it as a whole... which is kind of hard to argue with, except that most bands write shitty or, at best, merely functional lyrics, so sticking with that philosophy should theoretically downgrade like 80% of the stuff you think is awesome, unless you exclusively listen to poet-songwriters like Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen.

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