Magnificent Fiend

*Magnificent Fiend* does not play like a sophomore effort. The songs on Howlin\' Rain\'s second coming are so well written and recorded that it sounds like Ethan Miller and company have been banging out records for decades. The album overflows with vintage amplifier-burning boogie rock, and although the songs are saturated in the borrowed tones of bygone Barbary Coast bands like early Grateful Dead and Creedence Clearwater Revival, there are a couple crucial elements saving Howlin\' Rain from dead retro panning. First of all, singer Ethan Miller continues to import the dark sonic scuzz and sideways thinking arrangements from his other band, Comets On Fire. Secondly, Rick Rubin\'s  innovative production values allow *Magnificent Fiend* to choogle harder than CCR, but with unpredictable dips and detours into previously uncharted sonic topography, all the while making sure that it doesn\'t sound like Miller recorded his raspy wail while wearing Chris Robinson\'s brown suede fringed jacket. Take away those two elements and organ grinding gospel rave-ups like \"Lord Have Mercy\" could easily be mistaken for Delaney & Bonnie outtakes — not that there\'s anything remotely wrong with that.

Magnificent Fiend is the second album from Howlin Rain. By turns pummeling and pastoral, it oscillates between roaring, all-stops-out, Hammond organ-driven tracks and delicate electric piano passages, topped by harmonized, often dissonant guitar lines. Toss in counter-melodic bass, sometimes quirky breaks, and extended instrumental sequences that are either ascending to the heavens or cascading softly, from the skies in sparkling showers of gunpowder and smoke. All held together by Miller's distinctive, crushed-velvet roar-redolent of British R&B giants Steve Marriott or Terry Reid which extends to a sweet, plaintive falsetto and lyrical content. It is the first to be issued under a joint agreement between multi-platinum record producer Rick Rubin's American label and San Francisco-based indie Birdman Records.