Life Before Insanity

Performer: Gov't Mule
Engineer: Dan Jurow; Brodie Hutcheson; Kent Bruce; Matt Kane; Michael Barbiero; Ray Martin; Brandon Mason; Charles Hart
Producer: Michael Barbiero
Distributor: BMG (distributor)

Notes: Gov't Mule: Warren Haynes (vocals, guitar, slide guitar); Allen Woody (rhythm guitar, mandolin, dulcitar, bass, electric upright bass, fretless bass); Matt Abst (drums, djembe). Additional personnel: Hook Herrera (harmonica); Michael Barbiero (glockenspiel); Johnny Neel (organ). Recorded at Muscle Shoals Studios, Sheffield, Alabama; Water Music, Hoboken, New Jersey; Bearsville Studios, Woodstock, New York. Personnel: Warren Haynes (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, slide guitar); Ben Harper (vocals, lap steel guitar); Allen Woody (mandolin, fretless bass); Hook Herrera (harmonica); Johnny Neel (organ, Wurlitzer organ, background vocals); Michael Barbiero (glockenspiel); Matt Abts (drums, djembe). Audio Mixers: Brodie Hutcheson; Michael Barbiero; Ray Martin; Warren Haynes. Recording information: Al And Water Music, Hoboken NJ; Bearsville Studios, Woodstock N; Muscle Shoals Studios, Sheffiel; Water Music, Hoboken, NJ. Illustrator: Rich Borge. Photographer: Danny Clinch. In 1997, following a short period of splitting time between the Allman Brothers Band and Gov't Mule, Warren Haynes left the former to concentrate full-time on the latter. With Haynes' rededication to the band, Mule went on to resurrect and expand upon the power-trio concept first pioneered by Cream and Mountain. Much like its predecessors, the Mule's fifth album, LIFE BEFORE INSANITY, continues to be yoked to leader Haynes' gruff vocals and formidable guitar playing. This time around, the Mule wanders away from its blues-rock roots, embracing a creative expansion marked by odd time signatures and more of a low-key delivery. Haynes' soulful vocals are an especially appropriate match for the haunting "Tastes Like Wine" and the goosebump-inducing title track. Elsewhere, the Mule welcomes such guests as Ben Harper on the meandering "Lay Your Burden Down" and harmonica player Hook Herrera on the gnarly "I Think You Know What I Mean." Although most of LIFE is low-key, Haynes gets to flash his chops on a slide-drenched, rip-roaring cover of Robert Johnson's "If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day," a hidden track.

Spin (3/00, p.150) - 6 out of 10 - "...a thick, dark song cycle concerning itself with collapse, confinement and derangement....the shadows of Mountain, Cream, and Hendrix loom large..." CMJ (1/08/01, p.46) - Included in CMJ's "Year's Best Triple A Albums" from 2000. CMJ (2/21/00, p.21) - "...the band manages to improvise and expand its hulking riffs into muscular, blues-based displays of power....these burly jams will make you enjoy sleep depravation."

The Allman Brothers Band offshoot Gov't Mule combines the improvisatory aesthetic of jam bands with the heavy-duty blues-rock sensibility of classic power trios like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Guitarist Warren Haynes and bassist Allen Woody, the band's founders, were both virtuosic musicians, and when drummer Matt Abts joined in, the circle was complete. Woody died in 2000, and rather than replace him, the band recorded two consecutive albums accompanied by a host of famous guest bassists from every conceivable walk of the musical world.

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