Description
“Masterful players on a Grail-like search for the cosmic heart of California.” – MOJO
“…good-time music on an end-times mission.” – ROLLING STONE
“…trailblazing a wonderfully refreshing slice of ‘Rock N Roll’ music.” – AQUARIUM DRUNKARD
“…a celebration of how American musical traditions can be at once honored and psychedelically expanded.” – UNCUT
The Chris Robinson Brotherhood’s latest album ‘Barefoot In The Head,’ marks a third collection of new material in only two years time. The 10-track effort, self-produced by the band, finds them pushing boundaries and breaking new ground with more joy and wonder than ever before. The album showcases the continued growth of Robinson’s songwriting partnership with his bandmates (guitarist Neal Casal, drummer Tony Leone, keyboardist Adam MacDougall, and bassist Jeff Hill), while reveling in the kind of playful adventurousness that can only come from five artists tuned in to the same sonic wavelength.
The album opens with the Americana funk of “Behold The Seer,” which sounds like something of a mission statement for the CRB as Robinson sings, “If you want to keep your engine humming / Keep your eyes wide ahead and don’t look back.” On the dreamy “She Shares My Blanket,” Robinson crafts cinematic scenes from a winter love affair in the mountains, while elegant pedal steel added by special guest Barry Sless on “Blonde Light Of Day” casts a warm, romantic haze and “Blue Star Woman” sounds like T-Rex dressed in overalls living on a West Coast commune. Throughout the album, Robinson and the band deftly intertwine country, blues and psychedelia, even channeling freewheeling 60s’ folk on “Hark The Herald Hermit Speaks,” a breakneck stream of consciousness that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. On the English psych inspired “Glow,” which Robinson calls “one of the most special things I’ve ever done in the studio,” The CRB are joined by the celebrated sarodist Alam Khan (son of the legendary Ali Akbar Khan).
“The music that we make, the concerts that we play, it’s this world we’ve created for ourselves and our people,” explains Robinson. “We want everybody to understand that no matter where you are in your life that you can always be barefoot in your head. There’s always this other place you can go. Is that place it real? That’s your decision to make, what you’re going to let be real to you.”
