Chris Robinson: New Earth Mud : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Chris Robinson's second post-Black Crowes album gets off to a blazing start with "40 Days," an urgent rocker that ranks with the best work of his former band. Then Robinson does something puzzling: He slows the tempo, and he keeps it dialed back for nine -- nine -- consecutive songs, leading to a sixty-five-minute album that seems endless. Producer Ethan Johns brings texture and liveliness to the moderately paced "Mother of Stone" and "Like a Tumbleweed in Eden," making one wonder what might've been. Robinson is singing with power and conviction and still knows how to write a song, but This Magnificent Distance would've been far more compelling had he been limited to forty minutes max, just like the bands that inspired him.