When the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion returned to the stage two years ago after a six-year layoff, their mission was philosophically simple, if physically demanding: They just had to live up to their reputation as the perpetually sweat-soaked band that showed the 90s American indie underground how to get down. And as that 2010 reunion tour-- which coincided with extensive reissues of the band's 90s-era catalog-- continued to rack up positive notices well into 2011, there was little doubt that, even well into their 40s, frontman Jon Spencer, guitarist Judah Bauer, and drummer Russell Simins still possessed the stamina of their twentysomething selves.
However, what the Blues Explosion could bring to the table as a rebooted recording act was far less certain. From their 1991 debut through to 1998's Acme, the band had undergone a dramatic evolution from no-waved scuzz-punks to studio-savvy funkensteins, but one that had seemingly run its course as they entered the new millennium: 2002's Plastic Fang saw the band awkwardly try to temper its sound into '70s-Stones suaveness (tellingly, it's the lone Matador JSBX release to not receive the reissue treatment), while 2004's Damage reverted back to the Acme game-plan of enlisting a supporting cast of hip-hop heavyweights (DJ Shadow, Dan the Automator, Chuck D), but in a manner that ultimately normalized the band's sound rather than redefine it. So a new Blues Explosion album in 2012 presents no obvious game plan. Do they make a sleek, radio-friendly blooze-rock album in attempt to muscle in on some of them Black Keys bucks? Do they try to score cred points with the Ty Segall set by revisiting their early-90s avant-noise roots? Or, given the Blues Explosion's track record of reconstructing black musics ranging from Mississippi Delta blues to Shaft-esque funk to NYC rap, do they try to put their own absurdist spin on contemporary R&B?
With Meat and Bone, the answer is: none of the above. Which is the best possible outcome, really: The Blues Explosion barrel through the album's 12 tracks as if they have no legacy to uphold, no expectations to live up to, and nothing to lose. Stripped of the cut-and-paste studio trickery and celebrity cameos that defined the band's records from the mid-90s onward, the self-produced Meat and Bone boasts no ambition beyond capturing the Blues Explosion in straight-up, no-bullshit rock'n'soul mode. It essentially provides them with a chance to rewrite their post-Acme history, and posit the question: what if the botched back-to-basics mission of Plastic Fang was salvaged by the maniacal gusto of Extra Width?
If anything's really changed here, it's that Spencer sounds genuinely humbled. In the early 90s, the Blues Explosion were distinguished not only by their fondness for the sort of blues-based tradition from which so much punk and indie rock tried distance itself, but also by Spencer's penchant for hip-hop-inspired self-aggrandizement; "Blues Explosion" was not only his band's name, but his most utilized lyric, as if he were practising a form of inter-song product placement. But with Meat and Bone, pretty much the only "Blues Explosion" you get is printed on the album cover, and Spencer's banter here-- "Are you ready for your new career? Need a J-O-B," "I feel like a god/ But I still got a problem paying the rent"-- leans toward the self-deprecating musings of someone who's aware he's no longer the king of the scene.
Amid a 90s indie rock environment that frowned upon rock-star posturing, Spencer's shameless shout-outs to himself came off as playfully arrogant, if not outright provocative. But Spencer understands it's the sort of rhetoric that holds less power today, when self-promotion isn't so much a cheekily effective way to assert a persona as a practical necessity for any aspiring indie act. So on Meat and Bone, the focus is less on theatrical myth-making than reasserting the band's real-deal bona fides: three men in a room making one big racket. While "Bag of Bones" and the Orange-tinted "Get Your Pants Off" suggest the band haven't unlearned all of their funk finesse, Meat and Bone gradually forsakes its congenial groove for pure smash-and-grab insolence, hitting a feverish peak with the New York Dolls-damaged "Danger" and the contorted glam boogie of "Black Thoughts", on which Spencer seemingly sums up his time out of the spotlight by declaring, "Without a doubt, this is the worst vacation I have ever been on!" But what makes Meat and Bone a success-- despite simmering down into a mid-tempo murk during its home stretch-- is that the Blues Explosion never assume their comeback is assured. They're reapplying for the job of America's most raucous, hardest-working rock'n'roll band, and will let the sweat speak for itself.
