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Sometimes one forgets that in the late 60s and early 70s, there weren’t a bunch of guys sitting around in garages and living rooms saying they wanted to be the next Led Zeppelin or Cream – because there was barely a Led Zeppelin or Cream. For a while there, your local record store probably wasn’t specifically a record store and the local garage bands were probably a bit more like the Beatles and the Stones still. Which all in all means that Prayer for Animals, and their gritty debut Swell, probably wouldn’t have quite existed then… even if it sounds like it definitely could, would, and should. There’s no shame in crafting your music in the image of some of the best; would anyone rather be in a band that merely wanted to be Styx?
A well produced, crisp eleven songs in just over one LP’s length – 49 minutes – Swell hangs perfectly in the air like a snapshot of the most classic of rock and roll. Brent Sluder, Jeremy Jenkins, and Adam Brisbin’s harmonizing and howling lead Prayer for Animals three headed vocal demon by sliding gracefully from ferocious to soulfully mournful with impressive ease. On album opener “Thought I Told You To Shut The Door”, the band cops a funky attitude. Lead by Sluder’s pulsing keyboards, the band slips into a psychedelic funk that sounds like a more bluesy version of My Morning Jacket’s Z. That bluesy psychedelic haze permeates the album, with much of it sounding like - you guessed it – five guys who want to be the next Cream or Led Zeppelin. Specifically, the kind of guys who always thought “No Quarter” was better than “Stairway”. Or that everyone should own a copy of Disraeli Gears.
Prayer for Animals pulls off their best fast-forward of that long gone era’s sound fairly admirably. The swaggering “Neutral Bees,” complete with a John Paul Jones keyboard lick, explodes in the second half like an empty bottle against a brick wall. For every explosion, there’s a slow burning implosion - “Swell” and “New Planet” for starters – where the band lowers the volume before cranking it back to eleven just as quickly. Brisbin frequently duels fellow guitarist John Pitts in a battle of the slingers. And, as if only to prove that they’re not one trick animals, the band smoothly breaks up the flow of the album with a jaunty tune, “No Bed,” complete with a bouncing acoustic guitar and mouth harp.
So, since there’s no chance of finding the next Led Zeppelin or Cream – since that’s impossible, if the past 40 years have taught music fans anything – is it wrong to cheat a lot and indulge oneself with a little band toiling in small little clubs? Probably not, if the songs are good, the playing solid, and Robert Plant is still insisting on singing blue grass ballads and Eric Clapton still has short hair. Rock and roll fans will always look for the next ones, but hopefully they won’t go wrong and choose to miss out on Prayer For Animals. Maybe some day we’ll be talking about the next Prayer For Animals; in the meantime, let’s just enjoy their modern take on classic rock.
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