Forgotten Songs of the 21st Century: Clutch

Forgotten Songs of the 21st Century: Clutch

Clutch are one of those bands that have been around for an eternity and it’s only been recently that they’ve started to get any real attention at all. This new and long overdue recognition began to gather steam in 2004 with the release of Robot Hive/Exodus and the fantastic single “Burning Beard.”

Kicking off with probably the quickest intro to a song since their 1995 self-titled album; frontman Neil Fallon immediately gets things off to a rockin’ start with vocals that could have only come from the southern bayous; ironically, the band is from Maryland but you would never tell from what you hear. The combination of Jean-Paul Gaster’s dynamic but restrained drumming, Tim Sult’s powerful guitar and the organ playing make for one hell of a racket behind Neil all the way through but Clutch fans were already used to this type of power but were just waiting for more of a mass audience to tune in.

By the time the song is reaching its climax, the band gets heavier and Neil gets louder and the final minute or so of this song is what really makes this one of the best songs Clutch had made in almost a decade. Fortunately for the band, the revived “Headbanger’s Ball” picked the video up and started playing the hell out of it. What resulted was renewed interest in the band but not bigger sales. In the next few years, that would all change and they would regularly debut in the top 40 on the Billboard chart but this is where it began and it’s time for people to look back and realize why Clutch are so important.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eepsCXpLY4

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