Songs We Love: Howlin Rain, 'Alligator Bride'
One of the keepers of modern-day psychedelic music doles out distinct styles to no fewer than five projects: There's the cavernous rawk of Comets on Fire (forever on hiatus), the Summer of Love re-imagined as Heron Oblivion, the punk-scuzz of Feral Ohms and the Beat poet solo guitar-noise of The Odyssey Cult. But Howlin Rain has always been the flyaway of Ethan Miller's wild hair.
Howlin Rain was originally formed as the melodic antidote tosongs. Its discography has run the gamut from burned-out psych to bucking country-rock to folk ballads to the big-budget-blues-rock of the Rick Rubin era, which let Miller for a few years. Point is, for an artist who regularly flies off on weird tangents, his outlet for straight-ahead rock music has often been his most unpredictable.
