Album Review: Warpaint by The Black Crowes

Looking back, it seems inevitable that the Black Crowes would suffer a rocky middle age. Young bands yearning to be old tend to stumble when the years start to pile up, once hunger and ambition start to fade into the ceaseless grind of the road, and the Crowes were no exception. After they mapped out the furthest reaches of their world on 1994's Amorica they slowly spun their tires, turning out records both respectable and tired, before internal tensions slowly tore the brothers Robinson apart, leading to a split in 2002, not long after the release of their sixth album, Lions.

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The Robinson camp revisits the swamp with bawdy blues-revival muck jams as seventh LP Warpaint dances to hard-hitting rhythms and Southern-fried guitars with the addition of North Mississippi Allstar Luther Dickinson. Lead-in "Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution" nods to the Crowes of old, joyful sounds paced by younger brother Chris' still-soulful croon, nothing lost in the seven years since their last lackluster release, Lions. Dickinson's slide riffs fit into expected Black Crowes boogie, his overdriven howl an appropriate complement to open-E stomps "God's Got It" and "Walk Believer Walk." Though no song stands out as particularly remarkable, Warpaint drips steady consistency.

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