Psychedelic Lunch

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series, “Spooktober Edition” where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore music from the 60’s to today. Weekdays At Noon EST. Enjoy the trip!

Clutch, “Drink to the Dead” (Pure Rock Fury, 2001)

Here’s a hot take for you: Clutch are an underrated band. It’s hot because Clutch is an extremely popular band; their career spans fourteen full-length releases and a plethora of EPs, rarities, collections, and so on. They also jam-pack every single show they played in the Before Times and are widely celebrated online. And yet, Clutch has garnered for itself a name of a fun, raucous band, with the adjective “dad rock” being thrown around (a fact that vocalist Neil Fallon has recently, and hilariously, owned). To be sure, they are those facts and then some: Clutch’s music is some of the grooviest and most irreverent stuff out there and has been for literally more than two decades at this point. But alongside, Clutch are also known for having great lyrics, ranging from everything between religion, economics, politics, ecology, mythological creatures, literary references, legends, Americana and much more.

At the end of the day, Halloween is a day when we frolic to honor the dearly departed. No band gets at the holiday’s pagan roots like Clutch, whose 2001 album-closer “Drink to the Dead” understands the shadowy wooden heart of this feast of fools. The track’s tipsy swaying and exciting-yet-melancholy lyrics sum up the reason for the season, that much-needed revelry people need as the fall sends a deathly chill down their spines. If you’re going to make it through the demise of all things, why not do it dressed up as asses, drunk to the nines?