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HOWLIN RAIN Deep Purple’s Machine Head. Humble Pie’s As Safe As Yesterday Is. Traffic’s Mr. Fantasy. Blue Cheer’s Vincebus Eruptum. This is the classic palette of sounds from which Howlin Rain draws its inspiration, and Magnificent Fiend follows up the band’s self-titled 2006 debut in powerful style, fashioning a blend of hard blues, herb-smoke-encrusted rock, country-tinged folk and swinging, blue-eyed soul. The shape-shifting group is the side project of Comets On Fire frontman Ethan Miller, who somehow manages to pare down the sonic complexity and sledgehammer dynamics of his main band while capturing all of its fire, grace and freestyle instrumental interplay. Recorded in seven days in the same converted Northern California chicken coop where Tom Waits laid down Bone Machine, this is that rare album whose songwriting is equal to the technical excellence of the playing, rather than a mere platform for chops. “Dancers At The End Of Time” starts Magnificent Fiend in fire-breathing fashion, letting its Hammond-organ melody drive the song furiously forward while infusing it with a certain sex appeal. “Calling Lighting Pt. 2” neatly splits the difference between Toulouse Street-era Doobie Brothers and Small Faces’ steel-plated soul, while “El Rey” is the sort of shambolic ballad you’d have expected from late-period Faces. If the Black Crowes’ Robinson brothers were less hidebound and more relevant, Magnificent Fiend is the sort of record they’d make in their dreams. [American, www.americanrecordings.com] —Corey duBrowa
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