Album Review: Clutch – Pyschic Warfare (Weathermaker Music)

Clutch’s 11th album comes 2 years after the successful & well received Earth Rocker. A band famous for their bluesy, stoner rock sound they have built a huge following over the last few years & seem to be destined for even greater things now.

X-Ray Visions is such a catchy song, a perfect Clutch number that just captures so much of the energy that the band has. It’s a beat-lead groove track that focuses on singer Neil Fallon’s excellent singing voice & follows straight into Firebirds, another instantly catchy song that seems almost spoken-word at times.

A Quick Death in Texas utilises some incredible riffs & hooks to really get your attention. It conjures up images of dusty roads, hot suns & Mexican stand-offs! It’s one of the standout tracks on the entire album.

The next track, Sucker for the Witch does blunt the momentum a little, not a bad song by any standards but feeling a bit pedestrian by Clutch standards. At just over 3 minutes long it doesn’t hang around before Your Love is Incarceration kicks off.

I really like the simple yet effective beat here that swaps between rockabilly & a harder rock sound. It’s another short one but it sticks in your head long after its finished playing as does the very short, deep & moody instrumental Doom Saloon.

Our Lady of Electric Light is by far the best song on the entire album. It’s a slower number that sounds like the sort of song that would play at the end of a cheesy 80’s movie…where the loved up couple drive away in their Cadillac. Incredible riffs & great vocal pacing that you just get lost in.

The speed is picked back for Noble Savage, an energetic piece that lacks a little in the vocal department, while Behold the Colossus is a great reminder of just how eclectic the band can be. For an album that is filled to the brim with riffs & hooks it’s easy for each song to get over-shadowed by the last but somehow they all sound incredibly individual without disrupting the flow.

The 2nd to last song, Decapitation Blues keeps things short again & doesn’t really excite. It’s probably the weakest song on the album lacking a memorable riff, something Clutch are kings of & just feeling so-so.

Finally we end on a bit of an epic (over 7 minutes long) called Son of Virginia. A blues-style opening combining fantastic vocals & amazing guitar melody that builds & builds excitement towards an incredibly catchy rockier edge. It repeats these steps again…building up, exploding before bringing it back down only changing things up nearer the end with a much slower sound!

It’s another great Clutch album with only a few songs that don’t stand out as well as the others.