By DAVE GIL DE RUBIO
When Howlin' Rain's Ethan Miller answers the door of the Brooklyn flat he's borrowing from a friend, the disheveled hair and wildly scraggly beard he's sporting gives him the look of a modern-day Rip Van Winkle. In many ways, the analogy fits, given that it's been a four-year odyssey between the band's 2008 sophomore outing, Magnificent Fiend, and The Russian Wilds, the its brand-new project.
Executive produced by Rick Rubin, (who wooed the band to his American Recordings imprint back in 2007), Howlin Rain's third full-length continues down a familiar stylistic path with the extended jamming and hard-hitting delivery of Blue Cheer and the bluesy boogie of Humble Pie. But this time around, slight nuances hint at a broader palette of influences: There's a fusion of Afro-Cuban rhythms and mariachi horn arrangements framing the outro of "Phantom of the Valley," and a Vince Guaraldi-jamming-with-the Allman Brothers Band flavor to "...Still Walking, Still Stone." It's all quite a leap from the work of Miller's previous group, S.F.-Santa Cruz psych-rockers Comets on Fire.