Clutch are no strangers to releasing the odd must-have collectible, so it was perhaps inevitable that the multiple versions of their 2022 album were just an appetiser for yet more walletworrying format tomfoolery.
Dubbed ‘The Complete Edition’, the latest iteration of Sunrise On Slaughter Beach arrives as an expensive, very limitededition box set of six hand-pressed seveninch singles, complete with picture sleeves, lyric booklet and turntable slip mat. Highly desirable as a trophy purchase but hugely inconvenient if you actually want to listen to the music, the full album is nevertheless all here now, with three more tracks filling out the back end.
The original version of SOSB – just nine songs and a running time of 33 minutes – remains a brilliant although rather concise bruiser, a bit like a classic slab of early Van Halen. It seemed a tad lean at the time compared with their other albums, but the pandemic had allowed frontman Neil Fallon and co. plenty of time to craft one of their finest, most diverse-sounding collections, with some judicious Mellotron, synth and Theremin action bringing greater texture, and female backing singers Deborah Bond and Franchell Davis adding some epic depth to Fallon’s mighty bluesy roar.
Of the lyrics, Fallon, always a unique proposition, surpassed himself throughout; jazz supremo Roland Kirk inspires Philip K Dick and drive there’s more sci-fiand gothic-horror classic the darkly witty and the spacious
