Howlin' Rain
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Magnificent Fiend - Howlin' Rain Album Review
Album Review
Embracing past progressive rock and the 21st century, Howlin Rain release a fantastic second album - Magnificent Fiend on San Francisco based Birdman Records.
Magnificent Fiend is full of retro soundscapes with Hammond organ tracks along with ballsy rock blasts and delicate electric passages. There's a lot of harmony work going on here too, which makes this so appealing to devotees of old fashioned prog-rock and accessible tunes from The Band-like songbook. The deceptive pseudo jazzy instrumental requiem precursors the romping Dancers...which is right out of the early seventies - heavy Hammond B-3 organ (Joel Robinow) and blistering guitar riffs and solos, leading to a funky short sequence segued by more storming all-out rock. This is all behind Ethan Miller's cultured crushed velvet roar, reminiscent of the likes of Humble Pie's Steve Marriot, and a band they stylistically seem to share a lot in common with. It's not all blood and thunder though, as the soft rocking boogie Calling Lightning Pt.2 testifies to. Jewel in the crown is the magnificent Lord Have Mercy. There's a distinctive late 60s flavour going on here. After its mellow start, Lord Have Mercy rises and falls, Miller's rasping and pleading singing completes desperation of the guilty man's conscience. Its high point is the Lynyrd Skynyrd Free Bird-like bluesy and awesome solo by Miller's electric Wah lead guitar.
The most complex and exquisite moments happen of the lightweight El Rey, again cleverly meshing the past with the present, though there's plenty more Hammond work going on. Goodbye Ruby draws heavily on Southern boogie meisters Little Feat. Should they need to track to lift as a single, this is it. Crowning a glorious album, opus Riverboat consolidates my belief that Howlin Rain are destined to around a long, long time, and Magnificent Fiend is all it purports to be.
