Product Description

Seventh studio album, their first in seven years, from the unashamedly retro blues-rockers who have sold an astonishing20 million albums worldwide since they formed in Georgia nearly a quarter century ago. Now featuring ex-North Mississippi Allstar Luther Dickinson on guitar, the album sticks resolutely with an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" aesthetic and as such is chock-full of the rollicking downhome anthems the boys have made their own.

Track Listing

1. Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution
2. Walk Believer Walk
3. Oh Josephine
4. Evergreen
5. We Who See The Deep
6. Locust Street
7. Movin' On Down The Line
8. Wounded Bird
9. God's Got It
10. There's Gold In Them Hills
11. Whoa Mule

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7137 in Music
• Released on: 2008-03-03
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

A Grower....
I wasn't too impressed on the first few listens as I didn't really know where they were coming from; it sounds more like a heavy New Earth Mud. However it improves with every listen, to the point where Oh Josephine is one of my favourite Crowes songs ever - it even out-Stones the Stones. It makes more sense if you're familiar with Chris Robinson's solo stuff, which you certainly should be. I'd put this album on a par with Lions, or 3 Snakes: not their best but still great. At least it follows in the Crowes' tradition of dreadful album titles AND artwork!

Soft but superb.
Not the Crowes of old but then they are getting old!

I always enjoyed the ballads on the previous albums and this is full of thoughtfully written and well played music, not the rip roaring of Amorica or Companion but a welcome return never the less.

I just hope (if they ever get it done) that AC/DC can manage as good a comeback.

The Robinson Brothers + Session Musicans (labelled "The Black Crowes")...
The Black Crowes sensibly called it a day after "Lions". Like probably a lot of fans I felt a degree of disappointment - but principally because I was nostalgic for the sound the band had nurtured on their first three albums. By the time of "By Your Side" and "Lions" I was largely buying their records out of loyalty, rather than genuinely expecting to be knocked out by them.

That they've therefore decided to reform is somewhat bizarre, but after the Robinson brothers released a couple of easy-to-ignore solo albums and did an acoustic tour together clearly something was encouraging them to get back in the studio.

I'm not going to dismiss "Warpaint" as a complete disaster because it isn't; but the problem is that it is so frequently underwhelming and average. That the Crowes always mined the Stones/Faces/Humble Pie sound didn't bother me a jot - yes they were unashamedly retro, but they were one of the few bands of that ilk who could doff their cap successfully to that particular sound and do something interesting with it. But on "Warpaint" these songs are so musically ordinary the band sound like a tired facsimile of their earlier records.

The biggest problem is indeed the band itself. Core members (including Marc Ford) have been replaced with bland session musicians. I'm aware this record has Luther Dickinson on it - and he is a fantastic guitar player in North Mississippi Allstars - but not that you'd notice, because the collective playing here has no spirit. It's also criminal that keyboard player Eddie Harsch has been replaced with Rob Clores - his playing is so generic that the soul Harsch could infuse an album with (see "Amorica" particularly) is blatantly absent.

Buying "Warpaint" feels like a generous act of support to an old band, rather than the listener experiencing the sound of a genuinely accomplished group of great players roaring through a set. I would really recommend you avoid it.