Jeremy Irons & the Ratgang Malibus :: Bloom

‘Classic Rock’ is as abused, misunderstood and maligned as much, often more, than prog or metal. But it was inevitable that enough time would pass that it would turn into acceptable fertile soil, repeatedly churned over. Like any other genre (or the world), the cream usually doesn’t rise to the top; shit floats. And that becomes the bar that others strive to lower to unfortuantely.

Now that that’s out of the way, Jeremy Irons & the Ratgang Malibus‘ Bloom (Transubstans, 2011) is not classic rock in the way most know it.  And if it was, strictly, there’d be nothing wrong with that in my book. Look up ‘classic.’ It’s not a derogatory word…Bloom definitely has that era’s vibe and smokey haze all over and running through it, but JI&RM mix in dashes of more progressive 70′s rock elements (IAOA, Cosmo Tropic), space/stoner rock (Bloom) and Stones-y swagger (check the strut of Tales of the Future) to lift it out of the classic rock gutter and make it simply a solid, classy, rock record through and through. 

You can’t deny these guys are behind what they do and they do it well. You can hear traces of the old guards pumping through Bloom, but it’s put together and pulled off in a laid back mode that delivers their diversity, old and new, with a relaxed hand that doesn’t seems forced, or trite. Bloom is sequenced dead-on, too, which not only recalls the glory days of the ‘album,’ but makes its delivery even more sure and natural.

JI&RM pull off the straight-up rock as well as they can spiral out with the more progressive flourishes, building and boiling the blues-ier rock with the more progressive into something more than the usual backward glancing retread. Fired-up vocals, twin guitar pyrotechnics, swirling keys in the right places, a galloping bottom end…They pull of a distilled balancing act, straddling the goods then and now…moving forward, keeping a glancing eye on where it all came from.

IAOA :: Jeremy Irons & the Ratgang Malibus :: Bloom (Transubstans, 2011)