Chris Robinson Brotherhood - Barefoot In The Head

Barefoot In The Head is the sixth studio album by American blues rock band Chris Robinson Brotherhood, released in July 2017 via Silver Arrow Records.

Chris Robinson Brotherhood was an American blues rock band formed in 2011 by Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson while the group were on hiatus. The original line-up consisted of Chris Robinson (vocals, guitar), Neal Casal (lead guitar, backing vocals), Mark Dutton (bass guitar, backing vocals), George Sluppick (drums), and Adam MacDougall (keyboards). Since 2015, the band had undergone various personnel changes with Robinson and Casal remaining the only constant members. Following the death of Neal Casal in August 2019, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood would disband.

“I used to say what we do is ‘hippie baroque,'” says Chris Robinson about the music he makes with the Chris Robinson Brotherhood – a stew of rock, blues, country, funk and soul sounds topped with a healthy smattering of spacey psychedelia and wrapped in a jam-band aesthetic. “Because we want something that’s expressive and sensual and beautiful. It’s like a garment that feels really comfortable, but it has all these, like, magic symbols on it.” He pauses. “That maybe other people can’t even see …”

These days that magic-symbol-adorned garment, as it were, is getting plenty of wear. Since the Black Crowes played their final show in 2013 (they split for good, under acrimonious circumstances, in 2015), Robinson and his band, which includes guitarist Neal Casal, latter-day Crowes keyboardist Adam MacDougall, bassist Jeff Hill and drummer Tony Leone, have been operating in overdrive, averaging upwards of 100 live dates a year and releasing two new CRB studio efforts – Any Way You Love, We Know How You Feel and the EP If You Lived Here, You Would Be Home By Now – in 2016 alone. They’ve just finished up another full-length, their fifth, titled Barefoot in the Head, due July 21st via Silver Arrow Records. The album’s leadoff track is “Behold the Seer,” a jaunty funk and roll number accented by Casal’s quicksilver guitar licks and MacDougall’s burbling electric piano work. Robinson’s words, meanwhile, offer up something of a musical, if not a lifestyle, mantra: “If you want to keep your engine humming,” he intones, “keep your eyes wide ahead and don’t look back.”

– Rolling Stone (extracted from the Chris Robinson Band website).

This 2LP record set is on black vinyl at 45 RPM housed in a gatefold sleeve with a poster, pressed in the US via Silver Arrow.