PHOTO: JIM BROCK | Less than a year after playing another one of their epic, two-set shows, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood returns to Tipitina’s this Thursday night. They are touring in support of their fourth studio album, Anyway You Love, We Know How You Feel, which arrives in stores on July 29 on Robinson’s own Silver Arrow Records.
Robinson may best be known as a southern rocker from his work with the multiple-awarding winning band, the Black Crowes. But since relocating to California his music has veered more toward the loose, improvisational rock made famous by the Grateful Dead and other bands in the San Franciscan diaspora.
The new album was recorded on the side of a mountain overlooking the foggy Pacific Ocean in northern California. The group had spent the previous two years touring relentlessly and road-testing the new songs. The goal was to insure the band was in peak form in order to capture the music the way they sound in concert.
The Chris Robinson Brotherhood emerged in 2011 by playing close to fifty shows over nine weeks in California before ever leaving the Golden State or officially releasing music. Their introduction on the national stage came in 2012 when they released two acclaimed full-length albums within a few months of each other.
Though the Dead may be the ideal stepping point for trying to pigeonhole the group’s idiosyncratic sounds, I like two terms that were used by other writers—“cosmic California music” and “acid Americana.” Regardless, for fans looking to hear compelling original songs steeped in psychedelia and choice covers from across the American canon, don’t miss this show.
