The Black Crowes
Lions (V2)
by Brian Varney
Lions is the sixth (and apparently last) Black Crowes full-length and the second since the departure of lead guitar whiz Marc Ford. Debate continues to rage among the band’s fans whether Ford’s departure was the band’s unofficial death knell, but the fact remains that the band made three albums of astonishing depth and soul during Ford’s tenure and two uneven, generally-uninspired platters in the years since.
I don’t want it to seem like the album is a complete washout, though. The band’s willingness to experiment with different tempos and textures is refreshing after the bland bar rock of By Your Side, even if several of these experiments aren’t particularly successful (such as Chris Robinson’s disastrous attempt at scat singing on “Ozone Mama”). And there are some really good songs on here – “Midnight from the Inside Out” is a tailor-made show-opener and “Soul Singing” is a cool summer-timey sort of thing that’d be a huge hit in a just world.
But the fact remains that this is not the band it once was. The three Marc Ford-era albums (Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, Amorica, and Three Snakes and One Charm, by the way) will be on my short list forever. Lions is something that will most likely gather dust on my CD shelf once I’ve given it a few more spins.
(14 E. 4th St. New York, NY 10012)