The Black Crowes, Before the Frost…Until the Freeze

The Black Crowes have just released Before the Frost/Until the Freeze, a double album — sort of. This innovative release is the hard copy of Before the Frost…, with an online code for …Until the Freeze. The band did this as a thank-you to their fans for a 20 year career (so far).

Both albums were recorded live in studio, in front of a small crowd. This really gives the songs a great natural sound, augmented by the smattering of sounds from an appreciative audience. What’s interesting is that when I added both albums to iTunes, Before the Frost was labeled “blues,” while Until the Freeze was “rock.” There is no split personality on these albums, however, just the same high-quality — pun intended — blues-based rock with an ever-increasing acoustic sound.

That’s not to say that their jam-band appeal is gone; that’s evident on “Been a Long Time.” Now the 7-minute jams are sharing space with a more acoustic/country sound on “Appaloosa” and “Houston Don’t Dream About Me.” The latter’s a beautiful ballad, very reminiscent of the driving country songs of the ’70s. Another interesting track is “Aimless Peacock,” a 7-minute instrumental that’s a cross between Appalachian folk and “Norwegian Wood.”

The most curious, surprising, and arguably the best track is “I Ain’t Hiding,” a disco song. Yes, I said a disco song. While the chorus does have a rock feel to it, this is a disco song, and it is fucking awesome. I dare anyone to not start dancing in their cubicle, car seat, couch, or whatever, when they hear this track. I don’t know where the inspiration for this came from or why it took the band this long to record it; I’m just glad that they did.

There will be many griping that this is a good two-disc set with only one disc’s worth of great music, and that may be true. Since the second disc is essentially free, though, and since a “good” Black Crowes CD is better than most, all is well.