{"id":531845,"date":"2026-03-12T17:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T17:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/531845\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T17:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T17:14:08","slug":"the-black-crowes-a-pound-of-feathers-review-pathos-and-profanity-elevate-peerless-rocknroll-pastiche-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/531845\/","title":{"rendered":"The Black Crowes: A Pound of Feathers review \u2013 pathos and profanity elevate peerless rock\u2019n\u2019roll pastiche | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Time is not linear for Chris and Rich Robinson. When their group the Black Crowes first surfaced in the late 80s, music was deep into one of its magical transitional eras, technological advances sling-shotting pop into unexpected futures as techno, hip-hop and acid house left rock\u2019n\u2019roll looking like a period piece. The Robinsons clearly hadn\u2019t received the memo, arriving in a blaze of paisley and patchouli with an inspired Otis Redding cover<\/a> that dragged its 60s Stax strut all the way into the early 70s, redressing it in bell-bottomed denim and Sticky Fingers swagger.<\/p>\n

The artwork for A Pound of Feathers<\/p>\n

Almost 40 years later, little has changed within the Crowes\u2019 hermetically sealed hotbox. There have been calamitous splits, amicable hiatuses and radical lineup rejigs, to the point where the brothers are the only founding Crowes left. Yet they remain proud exiles from Main Street, and from the 21st century. It makes their 10th album an irresistible pleasure. In this grimmest of moments, with war and genocide and maniacs at the wheel across the globe, who could blame anyone for escaping into the simpler world conjured here, governed by Keef-worthy riffs, infallible slip-slide grooves and the kind of rock\u2019n\u2019roll misadventure that\u2019s always been rejuvenated in the Crowes\u2019 hands?<\/p>\n

A Pound of Feathers continues the upswing that began with 2024\u2019s Happiness Bastards, which reanimated their operation after a decade or so on ice and won the Robinsons their best reviews this century. But while they\u2019re returning to a winning formula here \u2013 same producer and same Nashville recording studio as its predecessor \u2013 there\u2019s nothing formulaic or phoned-in about it. That\u2019s why it\u2019s hard to begrudge the Crowes their fascination with vintage sounds and styles: no other band since has played the past with such authority, such joy, such full-blooded commitment to the bit. They long ago transcended pastiche to become the thing they worshipped, a neat trick if you can pull it off.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean a certain suspension of disbelief isn\u2019t necessary. You have to buy into the Crowes\u2019 mystique, into the mythos surrounding rock\u2019n\u2019rollers and their lifestyles. These songs very much concern the realities of life in a touring rock band of a certain vintage: substance abuse, transient love affairs and that peculiar emptiness that often follows debauchery. And while records such as Wilco\u2019s Being There have interrogated this subject matter from a more evolved viewpoint, the Crowes invite us simply to thrill to their exploits, and to feel empathy for the following morning\u2019s comedown.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Black Crowes: Profane Prophecy \u2013 video<\/p>\n

The Crowes\u2019 music does a fearsome job of selling their ornery rock\u2019n\u2019roll stories, a perfect-imperfect storm of Stones damage (It\u2019s Like That) and note-perfect Zeppelin-isms (Cruel Streak, and the exquisitely doomy, Kashmir-esque closer Doomsday Doggerel). And there\u2019s plenty of poetry, charisma and wit within the Robinsons\u2019 lyrics. \u201cI slept all night in a hollow log,\u201d boasts cowbell-driven opener Profane Prophecy<\/a>, adding that \u201cmy pedigree in debauchery is my claim to fame\u201d. On You Call This a Good Time?, meanwhile, Chris drawls: \u201cOoh, I can\u2019t remember what went on in that bathroom stall.\u201d Gentlemen never tell; rogues and vagabonds, it seems, simply can\u2019t recall.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the pathos. Their swashbuckling antiheroes glide across their stages and backstages, seemingly immune to consequences of their actions, until they aren\u2019t. Pharmacy Chronicles is a 70s sad-rock mini-epic illustrating the Crowes\u2019 facility with both the fantasy of rock\u2019n\u2019roll and the uncomfortable realities behind that fantasy, which reveal themselves when gravity suddenly and inconveniently kicks in. Early doors, Robinson is revelling in \u201cperfume, champagne and sin\u201d. But somewhere along the way, illusion gives way to disillusionment, and he\u2019s ruminating on \u201cside two filler \/ Prescription painkiller\u201d. The refrain \u2013 \u201cthe good times never end\u201d \u2013 gets accented by spectral slide guitar, and suffused with melancholy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s these masterful moments that balance out the cheaper thrills elsewhere, and make A Pound of Feathers such a rich, rewarding experience. Across these 11 tracks, the Crowes have it both ways: regaling in rock\u2019n\u2019roll\u2019s shielding invincibility before revealing their own hearts of glass. That it all works so well and never feels archaic or old hat is testament to some intangible alchemy.<\/p>\n

Age cannot wither the Crowes. Someone tell that tech entrepreneur weirdo squandering his billions on rewinding his biological clock that a bunch of reprobates have stumbled on the secret of eternal youth, and it has nothing to do with wackadoodle health regimens and, seemingly, everything to do with \u2013 as Spinal Tap\u2019s Viv Savage says \u2013 \u201chaving a good time, all the time\u201d.<\/p>\n

Alexis Petridis is away<\/p>\n

This week Stevie listened to<\/p>\n

New Age Doom with HR \u2013 Amaseganalo Pt 2<\/a>
The closing number from the Canadian experimentalists\u2019 collaborative album with the Bad Brains frontman invites a blissful Armageddon via ambient drone, spiritual-jazz squall and dub-metal crunch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Time is not linear for Chris and Rich Robinson. When their group the Black Crowes first surfaced in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-531845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}