After 2006, it was uncertain if there would be another Howlin Rain record. Well, at least in the mind of the musical world at large.
For Ethan Miller, the group’s founder, visionary, songwriter, and singer, the collapse of the original line-up was just a set back. There was no licking of wounds, no uncertainty. Miller simply went back to the formula he used after first conceiving Howlin Rain during a winter storm at his cabin on the Eel River: write a batch of undeniable songs, gather his talented friends and create a signature musical language.
The result is Magnificent Fiend. And while Magnificent Fiend has all of the sonic attack, tattooable melodies and rich, organic rock from the first record, it carries with it a depth of arrangements and playing that takes the music to new, ecstatic heights. It is a celebration of all involved, of the time we live in, and the Fiends it honors.
But we get too far ahead of ourselves. Back-story: Ethan Miller sprang into the underground rock world with his band COMETS ON FIRE. Comets quickly came to the forefront of what would come to be defined as “The New Weird America”, a movement that darkly combined elements of Folk, heavy psychedelia, free-formed existentialism, and atonality. A joyful noise comprises a Comets show, with Miller’s vocals being driven through an Echoplex and re-shaped at will by fellow member Noel Von Harmonson. While Comet’s chaotic wall of sound is a feat of architecture and a beloved aspect by the fans, Miller had another voice and musical path calling through the sonic maelstrom.
In 2004, he formed Howlin Rain with fellow New Weird America icon John Maloney, leader of Sunburned Hand Of The Man. The vision was a type of music originally defined in the free and easy era of the early 70s; organic, melodic groove oriented rock (Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead) combined with sensational songwriting but re-invigorated with a sonic bite and controlled chaos that hurls it into the modern times. Together, with fellow Humboldt County native Ian Gradek on bass, the band recorded what became the first self-titled Howlin Rain record.
Miller describes the first record as, “A celebration of chance and the artistic glory of human imperfection made to shine through a maximized good times and at moments, savage, rock and roll experience.” The record found an initial audience immediately upon release, in both the states and Europe. But after a single stateside tour, John Moloney left Howlin Rain and the first incarnation of the group had ended.
Phase two: After the dissolve of the first Howlin Rain Miller began to write a new album and put together a new group. Gradek stayed, along with Humboldt guitarist Mike Jackson, who had already joined the Rain for their U.S. tour. The new line-up was rounded off by drummer Garrett “Turtle” Goddard (Cuts, Colossal Yes), who brought an essential flow and driving, rolling groove to the new sound, and Joel Robinow (Drunk Horse) on keys, horn, piano, guitar, organ and backing vocals, who added a new level of chops and firepower to the Howlin Rain sound.
Miller threw the band into a practice space, and then hit Prairie Sun Recording Studio in Cotati with longtime engineer/ producer Tim Green bashing out the basic record in a mere five days. The record fuses more influences than can even be heard (see below) breaking any and all musical rules at will. The new band played so naturally together, that the complex song structures, arrangements, and chord progressions garnish Miller’s songs seamlessly…almost invisibly.
The record starts with all the drama of a Spaghetti Western, piano and horn drones, leading into the Vanilla Fudge-heavy “Dancers At The End Of Time”. “Calling Lightning Pt. 2” turns the original version from the first record on its head with an Easy Rider driving fierceness. The clean-up hitter is “Lord Have Mercy”, the pinnacle of all that is exciting and glorious, which starts so subtly and fragile, and ends with Queen-ish drama and fuzz guitar that will cause even the weak of heart to yell AMEN as Miller and chorus sings: “Lord, He has my number under the thunder, in his hand!”
And with all of that, Magnificent Fiend is more than just a random assortment of tunes as heard through a new, signature sound. The roots of the album were born from a conceptual EP that Miller was working on about misfits and outlaws, both real and imagined and the musical tales of their lives. Eventually Miller expanded and freed the songs from the shackles of their “concept” into the more free flowing narrative that runs through the lyrics and essence of Magnificent Fiend as you hear it now. Though Magnificent Fiend is more “Who’s Next” than “Lifehouse” or “Tommy” the stories and characters of misfit defiance spiraling into oblivion still runs through the fabric of the songs. From an homage to past Hawkwind collaborator and sci-fi writer Michael Moorecocks’s creation Jherrek Carnelian (“Dancers At The End Of Time”) to a story about a Faustian devil, (“Lord Have Mercy”) to a modern tale of the product of war (“El Rey”), Magnificent Fiend rolls from the speakers like a half waking vision made of dreams and nightmares, ignited and guided by the power of the new band and the velvet roar of Miller’s vocals.
