158. Clutch

Roundhouse

15 December 2016

Forget your shoegazers and indie boys with delay pedals, this is Clutch, old school hard rock; music built for mosh pits, muscle cars and men who name their amps. I rolled into Camden with my regular crew of gig-going degenerates: one of my best friends (riff connoisseur, leather-jacket philosopher, semi-professional cocktail holder), an ex-journo and undisputed queen of punk and hardcore and a friend of hers, and ours, whose coolness remains unshaken even when surrounded by 2,000 bald men in cargo shorts and Motorhead patches.

The Roundhouse was already humming with pre-gig electricity and the unmistakable scent of sweat, hops, and beard oil. A Clutch crowd is a curious thing, equal parts truck stop congregation, heavy metal dads on day release, and vinyl nerds who know the exact year Kyuss peaked (it’s 1994, in case you’re wondering). And then they arrived.

Clutch. The name itself sounds like a fist. And that’s exactly what they hit the crowd with from the first note. No intro tape, no slow build, just straight into the gut with “The Mob Goes Wild.” From that moment on, it was game on.

Neil Fallon, frontman, preacher, spoken-word shaman with forearms like tree trunks, stomped across the stage like a man trying to warn us about the end times and/or sell us an incredibly powerful lawnmower.

Every song was delivered with the conviction of someone testifying in front of a Southern Baptist barbecue. “Earth Rocker,” “Firebirds,” “X-Ray Visions,” “Electric Worry”, all present, all correct, all played like the band were trying to raise a mountain out of the Roundhouse floor. The riffs were filthy, and the volume was set to “biblical event.”

What makes Clutch so special is that they’ve somehow become the elder statesmen of riff-rock without ever sounding tired or recycled. They’re heavy, sure, but they’re smart with it, songs that reference Greek mythology, cryptozoology, and political paranoia, all wrapped in blues licks and cowbell. By the encore: “The Regulator” that turned the pit into a warzone. We emerged back into the Camden night, slightly deafer. Yes, it was mildly silly hard, riff rock, but it was also a hell of a lot of fun.