New Music

Revolution Come… Revolution Go...

The Mule’s still a-kickin'! What do you do when you’re on a break from The Allman Brothers? You form your own band and create a slice of music history, that’s what. Such was the case in 1994 when Warren Haynes put Gov’t Mule together and now, 23 years and 16 albums later, Revolution Come… Revolution

Go… seeks to address the current state of politics in the band’s USA backyard. And the Mule ain’t happy…

The recording sessions began in Austin, Texas on election day, November 2016, and many of the CD’s 12 tracks commentate on the somewhat unexpected and highly controversial result. For Haynes, the cover says it all: a soldier facing backwards on a mule, one hand holding a flag while shouting to no-one in particular through an orange traffic cone held in the other. “The character is yelling to nobody and facing backwards. It makes you think…” he says.

The album kicks off with the single Stone Cold Rage with a guitar riff that doesn’t try to hide its aggression, before settling into some incendiary Southern blues funk. Despite the prevailing thematic undercurrent of unrest, Revolution Come… Revolution Go… is more than a mere protest album, with the band kicking up a storm on tracks such as The Man I Want To Be and its epic soaraway guitar solo. As a contrast, tracks including Travelling Tune and the other single,

Sarah Surrender are pure Southern rock heartland. Possibly the most significant cut, however, is the record’s closer, a take on Blind Willie Johnson’s Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground rearranged for the band, with lyrics penned by Haynes, which enrich the brooding mystique of the original, a copy of which is currently in interstellar space aboard the Voyager spacecraft. Meanwhile, back on earth, the band is touring the UK later in the year, and we can’t wait! [DM]

Standout track: Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground For fans of: Trucks Tedeschi Band, The Allmans