Clutch premiere "Earth Rocker"

On Monday I listed Clutch's forthcoming tenth album as one of the 20 albums I was most looking forward to in 2013, and as it happened, less than an hour after publishing that post here, that album was in my inbox. And it pleases me to say that Earth Rocker is a very pleasant surprise, by far the band's most raucous album in a very long time, or perhaps ever. Their trademark blues groove - delivered by the formidable trio of guitarist Tim Sult, bassist Dan Maines, and drummer extraordinaire Jean-Paul Gaster - remains ever-present, but there's a ferocity to the new songs that will take a lot of people aback at first. That combination works very, very well, though, and the new material is bound to go over huge once they're performed on tour.