Baby 81 by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Baby 81, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's fourth album, hit American shops on May 1, 2007, a few days after Germany and the rest of Europe got it, and it finds the San Francisco trio harder and rawer than they'd sounded on Howl. Drummer Nick Jago, who had missed nearly all of the Howl sessions, was back on the stool, and you can hear it, the drums slamming under a haze of distorted guitar and bass.

Peter Hayes and Robert Levon Been trade the vocals and the menace, and "Weapon of Choice" and "Berlin" are the calling cards. The title comes from Baby 81, the baby who survived the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. It debuted at number 46 on the Billboard 200 with about 14,000 copies sold in its first week.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.