b.r.m.c. baby 81 Music
by b.r.m.c.

About this Music

BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB'S fourth album, BABY 81, is an ambitious, powerful, guitar-driven rock & roll record. Sonically, it's a far cry from 2005's rootsy, acoustic HOWL, the critically acclaimed album that proved BRMC's stalwart musicianship with their own brand of stripped down Americana. Now, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is deftly transitioning back towards the color-saturated wash of guitars that made fans fall for them in the first place. BABY 81 was born only minutes after the final track on Howl was completed, when Peter Hayes (guitars/vocals) and Robert Levon Been (bass/vocals/keys) were rejoined in the studio by Nick Jago (drummer) after a brief break-up earlier that year. The album title was inspired by the name of an infant admitted to the hospital in the wake of the 2004 tsunami, a child who was claimed by nine different mothers until finally being reunited with his own family.

After the surprisingly spare acoustic diversion of 2005's acclaimed Howl, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's fourth album returns the San Francisco group to the big guitars and rock swagger of their earlier albums. Baby 81 is a loud affair, and with each track polished to a high shine (the album was self-produced by the band, co-produced by Michael Been, who formerly led the Call), the results are slick and serviceable rock. BRMC are sometimes accused of rehashing courses charted by earlier bands, and here that tendency occasionally works in their favor ("All You Do Is Talk" opens on an airy organ, recalling U2's majestic "Where the Streets Have No Name"), but also leads inevitably to comparison (much of Baby 81 evokes Oasis or a T-Rex-lite sound). Here's hoping BRMC won't shy away from following their noses down some previously unexplored musical paths in the future. --Ben Heege