Blame it on the Stones. That pack of aging rogues may or may not fit the bill for the Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the World circa 1990, but the group's influence remains surprisingly vital – or haven't you heard Aerosmith strut its stuff lately? Well, here's another set of hopped-up white boys, four young bands trying to get over by mixing highly amped variations
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on the Chess Records catalog with a rasping, exaggerated take on soul music's man-and-a-half braggadocio. And guess what? This tried-and-true approach can still produce righteous, cobweb-clearing boogie as well as occasional bursts of bleary-eyed insight. If these four debut albums are any indication, the blooze – like its illegitimate parent, the blues – will endure.
A cynic might dismiss Atlanta's Black Crowes or the London Quireboys as third-hand rip-offs, imitations of imitations. To some degree, both groups do recall the Faces, a band that was both reviled and revered as an ersatz Rolling Stones in its mid-Seventies heyday. In the video for "Jealous Again," the Crowes' lead singer, Chris Robinson, even cops a few patented Rod Stewart moves.
Listening to the song, however, is too immediate an experience to qualify as nostalgia. Robinson slurs the vocal hook with an artful, expressive drawl, and the guitarists flay their fingers raw. The Black Crowes aren't merely trying to "reinvent" the Faces' ginsoaked rock; instead, they manage to reinvest it with innocent fervor and a swaggering grace. Steel Wheels is a good album and all, but this is how the Stones might sound today if Keith had spent his salad days banging steroids instead of smack.
Shake Your Money Maker is the kind of streamlined, supertight groove album that bar-band dreams are made of. On "Could I've Been So Blind," the Crowes achieve a howling, brutal eloquence: The band imitates a five-piece rhythm section, pounding like a jackhammer behind the pointed disbelief of the vocals. Their version of Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle" is a smoking, horny surge of roots substantiation, urged along by former Allman bro Chuck Leavell's dirty, delicious piano.
"She Talks to Angels" is Money Maker's requisite acoustic-based centerpiece – only it turns out to be a devastating account of drug addiction. "Stare It Cold" concludes the album with the same stirring Ron Wood-derived power chords that open it, and the miniraveup near the end gives a nice indication of the Crowes' live chops. Once you get past surface similarities, Shake Your Money Maker delivers a kick all its own.
Unfortunately, repeated exposure to A Bit of What You Fancy has quite the opposite effect. The London Quireboys are little more than a cover band draped in major-label glad rags. "Sweet Mary Ann," "Misled," "Roses & Rings" and "Take Me Home" are all blatant Faces rewrites; each tune begins with a tossed-off intro before the Quireboys lurch into a distorted country-blu
