(Indie Rock) The Great Crusades - Thieves Of Chicago - 2014, MP3, 320 kbps

This great indie rock band has certainly made a name for itself in Germany and Europe. With their eighth album, The Great Crusades from Chicago – who have been with Glitterhouse Records for many years – are becoming a part of the Blue Rose family. Thieves Of Chicago delivers straight rockers songs and a number of their patented dramatic ballads but also ventures into new territory with country and folk flavors and a simmering desert atmosphere. In May/June 2014, the Great Crusades are coming back over here as a well-reputed, exciting live act – it will be their 20th tour of Europe. Fans may look forward to a freshly renovated set with their first new songs in four years.
In 1997 the Great Crusades, founded by band leader, singer and lyricist Brian Krumm, released their debut album The First Spilled Drink Of The Evening. Krumm is a strong-voiced singer and convincing performer slightly reminiscent of Mark Lanegan, Nick Cave, Tito Larriva, Gary Floyd, John Kay, Joe Pena and Guy Kyser of Thin White Rope – an easily recognizable singer & storyteller. He plays guitar, harmonica, and a banjo here and there. Since moving from the Illinois hinterland to Chicago in the late 90ies, he has been accompanied by guitarist/keyboarder Brian Leach, bassist Brian Hunt and drummer/keyboarder Christian Moder. Together they recorded the (Glitterhouse) albums Damaged Goods (2000), Never Go Home (02), Welcome To The Hiawatha Inn (04), Four Thirty (06), Keep Them Entertained (07) and Fiction To Shame (10) and now their Blue Rose debut Thieves Of Chicago. On some tracks they receive finely nuanced support from experienced Chicago studio players like Brian Wilkie (pedal steel), Jake Brookman (cello), Stephen Wright (trumpet), Curtis J.Brewer (guitar) and a female backing vocal group.
Opener 'This City Is A Shambles Tonight' with its mix of Mott The Hoople and Sister Double Happiness is an all-out rocker. It leads into the hypnotic desert feel of 'The Devil And All His Relations' – Calexico meets Tito & Tarantula with trumpets, castanets, Spanish guitars and electrified desert twang. 'Sometimes On Sunday Too' is a piece of storytelling folk rock in the Dylan/Lanegan/Cave tradition while ‘Another Song About You’ (with Hawaiian-sounding guitars) and ‘Naked Arms’ (with Krumm in the crooner role) are a return to desert rock a la Greyhound Soul and Thin White Rope. With ‘The Right Way To Be Wrong’ the Great Crusades raise their level of volume, electrification and punch. The song is a roaring blues rocker based on a riff that’ll remind experienced listeners of Norman Greenbaum’s ‘Spirit In The Sky’. ‘Why Did You Make Me Care’ is the album’s only cover, written by Beck (Hansen), a whiskey bar/sea shanty-type number (think ‘Alabama Song’ in the Doors’ version) with a wonderfully “chaotic” arrangement of horns and steel guitar.
It’s followed by the title track – slow and dramatic with cello, acoustic guitars and mesmerizing, slightly crazed talk-singing. ‘Vandalia’ is an homage to St. Louis, a former lover and Uncle Tupelo - midtempo country rock with beautiful pedal steel and casual vocal delivery by Krumm. After the straight, no-frills three-minute rock of ‘Time Capsule’ and the slow-burn pathos ballad of ‘Cruel Joke’, the album ends with two very different tracks. There’s the aggressive, slide-guitar driven badass rock of 'Til The Needle On The Record Goes To Bed' – a hymn for vinyl lovers everywhere -, and the steel-drenched, slow country rock of ‘Old Lovers, Old Friends’ which indeed puts the (virtual) needle to bed after 50 minutes of new Crusades music.