Black Rebel Motorcycle Club Stuck Between Revved Up and Numbed Off

You know how hot sauce comes in mild, medium, and extra hot? The same descriptions could be said for "Specter at the Feast" the brand new project from San Francisco's Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. In their case you could speak of their tunes as being either "booze drenched" "funereal gray" or "criminally insane". The song I liked most was "Let the Day Begin" which dares to be optimistic. Leah Shapiro does a bit of showing off on drums. Robert Levon Been is not skimpy with acknowledgement of several fractions of society such as dreamers in the bars and preachers of the sacred word. By the time he gets around to the lonely people everywhere you can't call him out for not being all-inclusive.Waking up to this selection after a good cup of java wouldn't exactly harm your forward momentum and might in fact prick your veins with newfound optimism. That frame of mind is an overall anomaly when held up against the rest of the tracks. What's maddening about "Sometimes the Light" isn't necessarily the grim lyrics ("Sometimes the light is all we know." "Sometimes the fallen is all we know."). It's the way the song hovers in the highest rafters of the church where not even the fifty foot woman could reach it. If the band's intention was to assemble a song that appeared ghostly and haunted the listening audience then congratulations. You succeeded beyond your wildest expectations. Left as is "'Ghost" can't even be saved by the rich chorus of Robert paired with co-vocalist Peter Hayes. The lightness goes well as a counterpoint to the somewhat mood killing messages that are hinted at but there's only so much depression one can stand before the navel-gazing gets painfully tiresome. Taking a side trip to the sexually-charged part of the creative gene pool "Fire Walker" has Jack Daniels and trips to the back office for a quickie written all over it. Synths take up a comfy residence, Peter marvels at how his femme fatale has wept a thousand tears and therefore has no use for his. Once more, we're not exactly hearing sentiments that would make a call to the suicide prevention hotline not sound like a smart idea, but at lease there's the odor of booze to remind us all that there's quality liquid octane to wallow around in. "Returning" to its credit is aided by Leah's insistence on pounding out a percussion version of bread crumbs that her compatriots can follow should anyone lose his way. Robert returns to Deep Funk USA by saying "How much time have we got left. It's killing us, but carries us on." I feel anguish at the mention of these words primarily because I know how fragile we the people are and have little to no tolerance for wasting time on the wrong people or things. Therefore a reminder of our collective futility to break out of our private prisons doesn't exactly open the locked chamber where warm fuzzies may visit. "A part of you is ending. A part of you holds on." Relatable but not exactly swimming in an upbeat stream."Hate the Taste" lays a thick coat of premium of Peter's bass over a world where Peter has claimed he's "tired of livin'." You know all this resignation-based thinking sucks the oxygen out of the steady doses of macho bassline. Want to climb to the edge of the roof again? Try these lyrics on for size: "I got a traitor's heart. I'm tired of livin'. With a tattered soul I got no one to blame. Gonna fall apart if I leave it to decision. She's the only one that can take it away." At least they've got guts venturing into the heart of darkness over and over again. "Let The Day Begin" must have been conceived only after somebody's meds kicked in all the way. Feeling sorry for yourself only takes you so far. But I digress, if only for long enough to have you guys wondering, "What's eating him?" More like what was eating them. "Teenage Disease begs for a fight. The guitar rise and fall gets in your face and dares you to knock that nasty chip off its shoulder. At last there's some defiance on display. The last track, "Lose Yourself", in my estimation is way too belabored. Clocking in at just over eight minutes it reminds me of one of those conversations where you're checking your watch every other minute just wishing the snore bore who's trying to commandeer your attention with his woeful story would just go home. The tale smacks of a plea for loosened inhibitions but around the 6 minute mark you're about as drained as one suspects the wounded female Robert sings about is. If all over the map purgings are your bag then "Specter at the Feast" is delectable. Otherwise just skip the angst cruise, cheer yourselves up by visiting the nearest Build-A-Bear workshop and get on with your business.