By Your Side

THE LAST time this listener encountered the Black Crowes, the band were, visually and sonically, stuck in '74. Like, 1874. After a year on the road flogging the Three Snakes And One Charm album, these former Sisters Of Morphine resembled some weird cult that'd crawled out of a peyote-pit on Walton's mountain, all tie-dyed dungarees and sandals, looking as bad as they must've smelled.

With By Your Side, the group's first release for Columbia, I'm glad to report that the Atlantans seemed to have regained their figures, so to speak, but not without sustaining the loss of bassist Johnny Colt and second guitarist Marc Ford. They've since replaced Colt with one Sven Pipien, and Rich Robinson now handles all guitar duties, a stretch that - on the evidence of his fine slide playing - has done the sulky six-stringer no harm at all. Unfortunately though, the cull has also resulted in the quintet ditching much of the Latin-Americana that made Amorica so diverting, and they've pretty much pared it all down to that original Stones/Allmans blueprint.

The presence of Aerosmith producer Kevin Shirley has given the Crowes a rather inessential spit 'n' polish, most noticeable in the backing vocals department (closer to Boston than Big Star on the otherwise muscular 'HorseHead').

But to counterbalance this, tunes like the opening 'Go Faster' - boasting the album's one remarkable lyrical moment in, "Just one question I might ask ya/It might sound like a disaster/Can this thing go faster?" - and 'Kickin' My Heart Around' benefit from a fulsome and punchy mix, kinda like what the Primals were aiming for on Give Out . . . But Don't Give Up.

There are some lovely left-field elements, such as the Sly Stone touches on 'Diamond Ring', the Beatles-y melodies of 'Virtue And Vice', and most notably, a series of outstanding horn arrangements, punched home with aplomb by The Dirty Dozen. These brass knucklers reach their apogee on the Van-goes-to-Louisiana crackerjack box of 'Welcome To The Goodtimes', where Chris Robinson proves himself a white soul singer worthy of comparison with Rod-before-the-rot.

So, By Your Side reinforces rather than rips up the rulebook. The magnum Crowes opus remains their post-tour psychosis blues classic The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion, but this one should keep die-hards happy for the moment.