Gig Alert: Clutch and Baroness Tonight at House of Blues

By Darryl Smyers Tue., Jul. 14 2009 at 1:21 PM

Ever since Faith No More went platinum with "Epic" way back in 1989, there has always seemed to be a spot in the marketplace for industrial strength metal/funk. Korn certainly took the sound to new heights of popularity and the genre proved financially viable enough for lesser-known bands to carve out a decent living.

Enter Clutch. Formed in 1991 in Germantown, Maryland, the quartet has parlayed its fascination with Led Zepplin-laced funk/rock into a near double decade career.

The band's ninth album, Strange Cousins from the West, hit the streets today and it's filled with all the prerequisite anger and dexterous instrumentation that this style of music calls for. Songs like "50,000 Unstoppable Watts" and "Freakonomics" tell a good deal of the story.

Clutch's best effort may well be it's self titled 1995 effort which contained "Texas Book of the Dead," a song that could well go a long way in describing tonight's audience.

Savannah, Georgia's Baroness gets the evening started with a more standard variety of heavy metal. But this quartet is capable of some surprises. The superbly titled "Cockroach en Fleur" has echoes of classical and southern rock while "Grad" is a slab of perfectly executed Sabbathy sludge.

In any case, this interesting bill could provide thrills and headaches galore.