Album Review: Clutch – Book of Bad Decisions

Maryland’s favourite Sonic Counselors deliver the year’s rockingest album

Back in 2018, I wrote a bunch of reviews that I couldn’t publish anywhere. So I’m putting them here.

Book of Bad Decisions, the latest album by Maryland band Clutch, rocks so hard it’s exhausting. Book is fifteen tracks of non-stop fist-pumping, head-banging, foot-stomping, genre-defining hard rock, including at least two of the best songs of the year, hands-down.

Those songs are “In Walks Barbarella” and “How To Shake Hands”. “Hands”, the first single off Book, is a fun send-off on American elections, in which singer Neil Fallon details what he’d do if elected president. It’s all pretty tongue-in-cheek, including lines like “first thing I’m gonna do is disclose all those UFOs”, and “put Jimi Hendrix on the $20 bill”. A few more serious lines do sneak through – “I’m ready to give the people what they want, and what they want is straight-talk, and no jive” seems relevant. Musically, “Hands” is a short, fast song that’s mostly chorus. The chorus happens to be the catchiest guitar/drum riff on the album, so “Hands” is a real blast to listen to.
“Barbarella” proudly declares itself “weaponized funk”. “Barbarella” has all the energy of “Hands”, channeled through a bombastic brass section and contextualized with alien-conspiracy-themed lyrics. The real stars of “Barbarella” are session musicians Roy Agee, Kevin Gatzke, and Vinnie Ciesielski on trombones, saxophones, and trumpet respectively. The brass trio lends “Barbarella” a personality wholely unlike anything else on the album.

Other tracks on the album mix what’s comfortable with uncharted territory for the band. Book adds “Emily Dickinson”, “H.B. Is In Control”, and “Weird Times” to the list of absolute bangers the band can pull out at concerts. There’s also “Lorelei”, the obligatory ballad, which is, refreshingly, closer to doom-rock than wistful power-pop.
On the more musically interesting side, there’s “Ghoul Wrangler”, “Vision Quest”, and album opener “Give Me the Keys”. “Ghoul Wrangler” is mostly a great blues-metal song, but really lets percussionist Mike Dillon shine with some great drum fills and a reversed drum lick about halfway through the song.
Vision Quest” features guest pianist Chris Brooks doing his best Jerry Lee Lewis impression. Guitarist Tim Sult also gets some good moments here with the album’s standout solo.
“Keys” starts off with a cool acoustic guitar lead, and some glitchy keyboards, before launching into a kickass electric riff backed by downright primal drumming.

Whatever the titular “Bad Decisions” were, I couldn’t find them on this album

And yet, Book is all killer, no filler. If anything, Book has too much killer. Near the end of Book’s hour-long runtime, I found myself jumping back and forth between songs so often I’m not sure I’ve actually listened to the whole thing in order. For similar reasons, certain songs that would be the best song on a lesser album – “Paper & Strife”, for instance – end up standing out less simply because they come too late in the album, following “Barbarella”, “Hands”, “Emily Dickinson”, etc.

Book is easily among the best albums of the year and in Clutch’s discography. Whatever the titular “Bad Decisions” were, I couldn’t find them on this album.

9/10