Beat The Devil's Tattoo

At the start of the previous decade, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were being lauded as the rock'n'roll outfit to carry the torch into the post-millennial abyss and beyond. At the very least, their mysterious demeanour and dark musings made them a darn sight more interesting than the other musicians of the day, be that the big-shorted, loud of mouth brigade spearheaded by Limp Bizkit, or the Brit pop hangover led by dullards such as Travis. As happens all too often though, the love affair ended almost as briefly as it had begun, largely orchestrated by less than captivating live shows and in the case of their third album Howl, a seemingly insatiable desire to commit career suicide.

As rock traditionalists go, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club were a little bit ahead of their time. Sure, the California leather jacketers came up a few years after the Dandy Warhols and Brian Jonestown Massacre, and more or less alongside Detroit garage-rockers like the White Stripes. But 2001 debut B.R.M.C. loudly heralded the rock-is-back swagger that would soon hit glossy magazines in the form of the Strokes, the Vines, and the Hives. As if that weren't enough, BRMC's stratosphere-pummel predicted not only the Jesus and Mary Chain reunion, the Magnetic Fields' Distortion, and A Place to Bury Strangers, but also last year's Verve-scale electro-shoegaze anthems by the Big Pink.