Music: Howlin’ Rain

Don’t let the name fool you! A rare ray of sunshine is coming to Brighton

Made up of bandleader/composer/guitarist/singer Ethan Miller, Raj Ojha on drums, Cyrus Comiskey on bass, Joel Robinow on keys and vocals, and Isaiah Mitchell on guitar and vocals, Howlin’ Rain generate an elemental force together, nigh-on-perfect rock ’n’ roll. They breathe new life into familiar territory previously explored by the likes of Santana, The Allman Brothers, Rod Stewart-era Jeff Beck, Free, The Black Crowes, and classic rock in general, incorporating all those elements and more within their classic rock/prog hybrid. And yet, it eschews retro for retro’s sake, the crisp production pinpointing it in the here and now.

For instance the Santanesque salsa rock rhythms of Phantom In The Valley features electronics and trumpet towards the end of the song. It’s pitch-perfect… “There was a point when we were really trying to blend Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland, Steely Dan’s Gaucho and Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness On The Edge Of Town,” says Ethan Miller. While the urban cool of  Steely Dan may be a little off the mark except in the final track, ‘Still Walking, Still Stone’, there is no doubting that like Steely Dan they are into crafting sophisticated cuts that aren’t predictable in their outcomes and yet flow like the best of them – compositionally it’s not so much ‘Wham Bam Thank You Mam’ as ‘Pretzel Logic’…

Their third album, The Russian Wilds, is already being heralded as a classic; a rapturous, ambitious and exhilarating long player that even has, shock of shocks, decent artwork that recalls the playful and surreal work of previous masters such as Hipgnosis, the design team responsible for many of Pink Floyd’s sleeves.

Howlin’ Rain are like a British summer: a rare ray of sunshine.

The Haunt, Tuesday 11 September, 7.30pm, £12