Howl is a 2005 album by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, now based in Los Angeles. BRMC is known for their garage rock, blues, folk revival, neo-psychedelia sound. They are influenced by bands such as: The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Verve, The Rolling Stones, Oasis, T...

. It is their third studio album and was released on August 22, 2005. The record was released in the UK and Europe by Echo

Echo Records

The Echo Label was a record label started by Chrysalis Group in 1994, and linked with Pony Canyon in Japan. The Chrysalis Group were the original owners of Chrysalis Records, which they sold to EMI....

 and by RCA

RCA Records

RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...

 in the U.S. (distributed through RED Distribution

RED Distribution

RED - An Artist Development Company is a Sony Music Entertainment-owned sales and marketing division that handles releases for over sixty independent record labels....

), Australia, Japan and the rest of the world.

While still staying true to their origins this album demonstrates maturity as a band. Howl infuses blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

, and gospel

Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....

 throughout, stemming from their love of Americana

Americana (music)

Americana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...

 less apparent in their 2001 and 2003 releases.

An extended version of the song "Howl" (which runs 6:12, as opposed to the 4:20 length of the album version) appears on the soundtrack to the 2007 film Southland Tales

Southland Tales

Southland Tales is a 2006 American-Franco-German science fiction dark comedy-drama film written and directed by Richard Kelly. The title refers to the Southland, a name used by locals to refer to Southern California and Greater Los Angeles...

.

Initial versions of the CD released in the U.S. are copy controlled

Copy Control

Copy Control was the generic name of a copy prevention system, used from 2001 until 2006 on several digital audio disc releases by EMI Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment in several regions...

.

Critical reaction

Many critics noted that Howl took a different direction from earlier BRMC releases. Critics were generally polarised with the album. While most agreed that their 2001 debut was the better of the first two records, and the follow-up had been rushed and lacklustre, opinion of the third offering was not so unified. Many critics saw the album as an innovative departure from the band's homeground, and the record that affirmed them as the 'Kings of Cool' once again, while others professed the record dull, and a last minute attempt at restoring a flagging career by an album of acoustic tracks that should have ended up as b-sides.

The title of the record is a direct reference to Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...

's poem "Howl

Howl

"Howl" is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg in 1955 and published as part of his 1956 collection of poetry titled Howl and Other Poems. The poem is considered to be one of the great works of the Beat Generation, along with Jack Kerouac's On the Road and William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch...

".

In a 2010 issue of NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

dedicated to great 'lost' or 'cult' albums, Howl was selected by Guy Garvey of the band Elbow as his great 'lost' album.

Singles

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club had claimed that they signed to the Echo

Echo Records

The Echo Label was a record label started by Chrysalis Group in 1994, and linked with Pony Canyon in Japan. The Chrysalis Group were the original owners of Chrysalis Records, which they sold to EMI....

 label in order to release more singles from their albums, having only been allowed to release two from their previous album, Take Them On, On Your Own

Take Them On, On Your Own

Take Them On, On Your Own is the second album by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. It was released in 2003.The album has a darker, harder rock sound than their debut album, and also contains more politically-themed lyrics...

. Despite this, their first single from Howl, album opener "Shuffle Your Feet", was a download-only single, therefore (at the time) not eligible to chart. Following this, they released "Ain't No Easy Way", the most recognizable and popular song from the record. Noticeably after this, the proposed third single from the album, "Weight of the World", never materialized, with only a limited number of copies surfacing, again non-chart eligible. Also notable is the lack of a single release for Peter's self-proclaimed best song "Promise", or live favorite "Devil's Waitin'".

Track listing

1. "Shuffle Your Feet" – 2:53
2. "Howl" – 4:20
3. "Devil's Waitin'" – 3:50
4. "Ain't No Easy Way" – 2:36
5. "Still Suspicion Holds You Tight" – 4:24
6. "Fault Line" – 2:57
7. "Promise" – 4:46
8. "Weight of the World" – 3:41
9. "Restless Sinner" – 3:11
10. "Gospel Song" – 4:31
11. "Complicated Situation" – 2:37
12. "Sympathetic Noose" – 4:17
13. "The Line" (contains hidden track "Open Invitation" at 5:09) – 8:14

The Howl sessions EP

An additional six-song EP was released in 2006 featuring unreleased tracks from the Howl sessions:

1. "Grind My Bones"
2. "Mercy"
3. "Wishing Well"
4. "Steal a Ride"
5. "Feel It Now"
6. "Pretend"

Singles

• "Shuffle Your Feet" (July 19, 2005) [download only]
• "Ain't No Easy Way" (August 15, 2005)
  • b/w: "Still Suspicion Holds You Tight" / "Grind My Bones"
• "Weight of The World" (October 18, 2005) [canceled as a commercial release]
  • b/w: "Mercy" / "Feel It Now"