Chris Robinson Brotherhood - Phosphorescent Harvest

Phosphorescent Harvest is the third studio album by American blues rock band Chris Robinson Brotherhood, released in April 2014 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.

While Big Moon Ritual and The Magic Door were cut from the same sessions early in the Chris Robinson Brotherhood’s development, Phosphorescent Harvest has a lush openness and a wealth of carefully placed sounds that a yearlong recording process allows. The CRB’s twin inflections, of psych weirdness and laid-back cowboy rock, get further apart here—the strange gets more ethereal and more precisely mind-bending and the guitars even earthier. The songs, largely co-written by Chris Robinson and Neal Casal, breathe in the juxtaposition. The album is dark and strange and pretty, a collection of love songs. There’s a lot to listen to: complex song structures, recurrent images, hints of a cycle, a system of metaphor being laid out. We hear acoustic strumming, Spanish picking and pedal steel swells, but also urban tones and shout-outs to New York City. Among the most satisfying moments are when the songs break into psych meltdown or prog instrumental. Adam MacDougall’s broad arsenal of organ, electric piano and synth tones is often foregrounded. It’s rock music turned inside out, as the synchronized riffs provide rhythmic context for the synthesized phantasmagoria, which sets the subtle roar of the guitar leads. Robinson’s voice has grown mature, and easy. This band is maturing, too. They’re finding their true sound in the process.

– Richard B. Simon Relix (extracted from the Chris Robinson website)

This double album 2LP record set is on black vinyl housed in a gatefold sleeve with printed inner sleeves, pressed in the US via Silver Arrow.