CLUTCH

If you're a CLUTCH fan, you already know that the band's been on a damn-near unstoppable roll on these last few albums. Sure, a few old-schoolers are still grumbling that they don't play angular east-coast noise rock any more, but if you're still on board at all, chances are you're down with the band's transition into this half-lit, shambling blooze-soaked heavy-riffing beard jam band with drunken style chops out the wazoo. And you also know that, as killer as the records have been, CLUTCH is at their unvarnished best when they're on stage, Neil Fallon swirling a few shots of whiskey in his gullet, cranking out these well-oiled anthems with your grandfather's work ethic and a groove that'd knock a hole in a bunker.

So all you really need to know about a live album from these veterans of the trade is the details: where it was laid down (four different stops, including last year's trip to Australia),who all's on it (the constant four-piece lineup plus harmonica player Eric Oblander and organist Mick Schauer),and how it sounds. It's big, folks, big and crunchy and full of low end, with drums that were apparently miked by Satan himself. You know it's unadorned and right off the stage, mainly because Fallon's the only guy with a mic (a lot of harmonies and double-tracked parts sound different, but still fine, the first time you hear them on a live set like this). But CLUTCH builds their songs to be live beasts first and foremost, so little tweaking is necessary. Besides, the band just cooks, and that comes through with all the impossible-to-add-in mojo that comes from being on the road as many days, as many years, as much a percentage of their adult lives as these guys have done it.

There may not be a tighter, slipperier rock and roll combo in existence than CLUTCH, and the way things are going, there might never be another pretender to their throne. As they get older, they evolve more and more into this curmudgeonly GRATEFUL DEAD of heavy rock, doing everything themselves, adding all kinds of tasty, funky jam parts into the songs live, and inspiring a small but loyal worldwide following of the kind of people who form sacred bonds in chat rooms over the swapping of beer-and-spit-stained set lists stolen off the monitors after "A Shogun Named Marcus". To them, "Full Fathom Five" isn't so much a stopgap or an introduction from the new, band-run label as it is a holy document, a best of (mostly) the new millennium teachings of these cryptic riff wizards. If you've lost touch with 'em since the 90's, this would be a great starting point to correct the error of your ways, and re-indoctrinate yourself into the cult of what might just be the last, best hard-working rock-and-roll band in America.