I am a late convert to the church of Clutch. People whose musical tastes I trust have sung their praises for many years but I held out, labelling all the fuss ill-judged and hyper-bole. But with last year “Book of Bad Decisions”, the penny finally dropped and I got what all the fuss is about. Clutch play the Blues as it is meant to be, dirty, scuzzy and eminently danceable. You see over the years, the Blues has been homogenised and sanitised to the point where it has lost its soul and it's primal energy but Clutch somehow have managed to recapture the raw kinetic power that makes real Blues so potent and I feel one darn fool for not realising it sooner. 

As I have been an unbeliever for so many years, I have gone out of my way to avoid Clutch live, choosing other bands over them at festivals and opting to stay in the pub when they supported Thin Lizzy. But not this time as glory be I have been saved. With all vim, vigor and passion of a born again, I will be down the front ready.

By Stewart Lucas