Black Rebel Motorcycycle Club - Specter at the Feast

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have always favoured darkness, from their leather-clad appearance to their confrontational musical style.  In the lead up to latest album release Specter at the Feast there was, as Robert Been put it himself, a genuine “shadow hanging over them,” following the death of his father, and mentor to the band Michael Been.  This tragedy in turn partially inspired the title of the album and had a profound effect on the writing process.

This experience can be felt on certain tracks, but death by no means overshadows the album because as fans of the band are well aware, BRMC have always produced songs of defiance and hope that deal with the light and shade of life.  They open with the contemplative, Fire Walker, an eerie slow-burner of a song.  Unusually for BRMC it sees keyboards used to good effect before bouncing bass lines and drums join in to provide a steady beat as the band set their stall out for what’s to come.

Let the Day Begin follows, a cover from Michael Been’s band The Call, and a song that acts as a tribute to Robert's father.  It is an altogether more hopeful song that celebrates life and speaks to the everyday working man, albeit given a BRMC sonic twist.  It is the type of song that will lend itself well to their energetic live sets. 

Returning and Lullaby are songs more akin to Sweet Feeling from previous album Beat the Devil’s Tattoo and lyrically appear to be the songs most indebted to the passing of Robert’s father.  The first verse of Returning encapsulates the mood, “A part of you is ending/A part of you holds on /What leaves your life suspended/Cradled by the sun.”

Sentimentality is substituted for hard-hitting rock ‘n’ roll as Peter Hayes takes the lead on Hate the Taste and Rival, songs that strive to reach the heights of Whatever Happened…but never quite make it, the latter packing the harder punch of the two.  Teenage Disease may be their most aggressive sounding song to date and sees both men embroiled in a vocal tug of war by the end as they try to outdo each other screaming, “I’d rather die than be living like you.”

Song styles tend to come in pairs on this album and after the intensity of the previous songs we move on to the most simplistic sounding tracks on the album.  Tambourine and ghostly backing vocals work well on Some Kind of Ghost, as does lone organ on Sometimes the Light, the sparseness of instrumentation giving both songs an warm intimate quality.   Mid-tempo tracks Funny Games and Sell It allow for some of the most intricate guitar work on the album with the frontmen unleashing their trademark reverb-drenched guitar onslaught backed by lynchpin Leah Shapiro, holding it all together on drums throughout - on this her second outing with the band.

On the whole it’s a well-balanced album, the difference between this and their previous output is that the slow-paced songs tend to be the highlights, while it has always been the up-tempo songs in the past.  They have produced an album in the same mould as Beat the Devil’s Tattoo in terms of diversity, but have also made enough of a departure to suggest that there is still room to grow and experiment in future.

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By Garrett Hargan