Classic RockMetal
Clutch release “Wasted Lands” on 22 January 2027 through Weathermaker Music, their own label. It is the Maryland four-piece’s fourteenth studio album, there are twelve tracks and the title track comes out today with a video; the first taster, “The Drifter Returns”, arrived on 28 August. They wrote and recorded it at the Doom Saloon, their base in Frederick, with producer Machine, who had not worked with them since “Psychic Warfare” in 2015.
Singer Neil Fallon explains where the title track’s lyric came from: “The inspiration for the lyrics in ‘Wasted Lands’ came about when it was brought to my attention that someone had been dragging my name on Facebook (weird, right?). Apparently, I had reneged on a free t-shirt and dinner. I think it was a prize in a pay to play contest. Not to overstate the obvious, but it was a load of horse hockey. Many people tried to explain to this person that it was not me and that they had been hustled. But they simply would not believe it. So I thought, screw it, no half-measures. You want a monster? Let’s give you one.” The creature in the song is called Neil Patrick Fallon.
Drummer Jean-Paul Gaster defends a kick drum the producer argued with him about: “There’s a part where Neil says, ‘Vegetable, mineral, man, or beast.’ And I put a bass drum on, ‘man or beast,’ and Machine thought that was kind of weird. He was like, ‘Man, you’re covering up the vocal!’ And I said, ‘No, that bass drum is gonna make the crowd go nuts, I guarantee it.’ And it does.”
“Beware The Fever” has banjo on it, which had never happened on a Clutch record. They left it exactly as it sounded on the demo Fallon played and Gaster taped in a writing session: they tried to redo it several times and no new take came close.
The band tour the United States from mid-October to 7 November with Slomosa and Blood Vulture, and the following January they go to Australia with Corrosion of Conformity. No European dates have been announced.
Text by Enric Vilaplana