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Released on September 23, 2016 via Wind-up Records / Nuclear Blast Records
The Pennsylvanian hard rockin’, tough funkin’, deep groove swaggering, Sci-fi inspired, Crobot, fronted by the charismatic Brandon Yeagley, described in a recent Echoes and Dust interview that the follow up record to their debut, Something Supernatural, is ‘groovy, dirty, and funky, same ol swing with a little more swang.’ Confidence has never been the band’s weakness and this time around have incredibly stuffed in extra amounts of the said puffed up bravo to indeed, strut their stuff with a cheeky additional dash of panache, style, and groooooove. A remarkable shaken and stirred cocktail of Rage Against the Machine, Aerosmith, Audioslave, Guns N’ Roses, Them Crooked Vultures, with a splosh of Parliament, and James Brown, to sound like a band currently carving out their own niche in a quietly expanding distinctive manner to set themselves apart from their classic rock contemporaries.
Crobot’s well-oiled machine, pretty much a by-product of hard graft as well as talent, have been constantly touring including supporting big heavyweights Motörhead (RIP), Volbeat, Anthrax, Black Label Society, and Clutch, is matched with a staggeringly strong self-awareness of their musical inspirations blended into a visionary sound and purpose in what they want to accomplish. This second album produced by Machine (Clutch, Lamb of God, Every Time I die) is a sound of a band evolving building additional blocks on top of their debut by adding a subtle matureness to their song writing. The rock/funk crossover this time sounds more natural, less forced, while Brandon uses his immense voice evenly between high, middle, and low pitched ranges. And a better overall mix by engineer Alan Moulder (Foo Fighters, Nine Inch Nails, Them Crooked Vultures) has Chris Bishop’s guitar burst forth with punchy attack as opposed to just floating around in space somewhere as on the debut. So this reflects to a much higher degree the sound Crobot create in a live setting.
From the opening title track – ‘Welcome To Fat City’, which takes its name from journalist and author Hunter S Thompson’s desire to re-name Aspen as Fat City when he unsuccessfully attempted to become Sheriff – it grooves with big punchy thrusts of the hip. And so it goes on, the appropriately titled ‘Play It Cool’ burns and swings while wearing coolest kid on the block sunglasses, the assured maturity of additional harmonica, plus contrasting low pitched background vocals on the heavy funk rock of ‘Easy Money’ demonstrate this evolving and expanding confidence as Brandon declares “it’s all about the chase, baby.”
First single ‘Not For Sale’ is the closest relation to anything from their debut album, a riffy up-tempo rock outburst. In contrast, ‘Hold On For Dear Life’ incorporates a bit of mellow guitar play and vocal wooing to add weight to the overall dramatic punchiness of the song. The get under your skin catchiness and feistiness of ‘Temple In The Sky’, the lowdown grooves of ‘Right Between The Eyes’, and ‘Blood On The Snow’ are all boosted by the seductive riffs Chris conjures and the body shaking rhythm and grooves provided by the Figueroa brothers, Jake on bass and Paul on the drums. The ballad-esque ‘Moment Of Truth’ avoids mawkishness pitfalls due to a heavy attacking chorus while the closing track ‘Plague Of The Mammoths’ sees Brandon extend his tonsil range into Chris Cornell territory as Chris obliges with some Soundgarden guitar wailing and bluster. This all adds up to a second album with a bit more depth and variation, oozes self-confidence, and should further their growing reputation in an upright direction.
Crobot come at you with an all knowing mischievous grin and a wink to confidently charm, seduce, and worm their way into your musical soul, while flying into orbit in a funky rock-et. A band happily to take you away from reality for a bit of fun fuelled funk rock action escapism. And boy, we can all do with that from time to time.
