somewhere, somehow, life dressed the The Black Crowes with a lot of truth. their latest release, Warpaint, pulls the listener through a maze of down-home blusey jams. some feel more like “classic” Crowes, some import newly discovered sounds. all of them, however, hover over a lifetime of battles.

somewhere, somehow, Chris Robinson must’ve been meant to be a preacher. three pieces shout “amen!” like a war cry.

“God’s got it,” the album’s back mountain spiritual, thumps along to a chorus of confidence, “if you need it, God’s got it!” the tune balances ungracefully on the edge of gimme, gimme, gimme theology, but truth resides in kernels, nonetheless.

“wee who see the deep” speaks via negativa, declaring:

do you even know this place?
nowhere is over.
to find our way back to grace,
nowhere is nothing at all.

“you” don’t know this place, apparently. we do find our way back to grace, and along the way, realize that somewhere is something - “forever in your mind…we(e) who see the deep.”

but it’s the refrain of the closing track, “whoa, mule,” that stirs the same pot, yet somewhere, somehow, more vigorously and gently:

whoa mule, whoa mule, we’re dirty but we’re dreaming
whoa mule, whoa mule, we’ll both get there someday

the ambiance of the song fleshes out its hope. birds chirping like a supporting Greek chorus grace the fringes of the track. mind you, it was actually recorded outside. those are real birds. and this is real hope. as instruments join the landscape, the rhythm builds to an acoustic march. my mind replaces the lyrics with, “whoa, there! the black crowes singin’ dylan!”

we are dirty, but we are dreamin’. not fantastically, but faithfully. a needed reminder of what we are, yet of what we will become. we’re broken, but we’re hopeful.