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There was a time when most rock bands would gladly have tossed their bass player off of a cliff for the chance to snatch a lock of Rick Rubin's beard hair, let alone coax the reclusive record producer and Def Jam label impresario into a studio. But the aspiring rockers of the post-file-sharing era may want to consult Howlin' Rain's The Russian Wilds, and then reassess whether or not courting the nation's leading rock'n'roll yogi is worth the time and effort.

Crafted over a period of four years with extensive guidance from Rubin, the San Francisco quintet's latest full-length has all the tropes of a record-as-game-changer-- it's moody and duende-soaked, meticulously crafted, and sprawling in its ambition. But The Russian Wilds is not the neo-jam-band classic it might have been. A conscious stab at classic album-making - with all of the madness, obsession, and studio overtime that allegedly entails - The Russian Wilds strives for timelessness, but sounds temporally adrift.

In 2006, Howlin' Rain were little more than singer/guitarist Ethan Miller's side project - a groovy aside to his main gig with psych-rock kamikazes Comets on Fire. But it had a niche. Where Comets skewed toward scuzzy chaos, Howlin' Rain made a conscious effort to splice the mellow sounds of 1970s radio past with New Weird America present. "I was trying to make it represent the nature and vibe of California, musically," Miller told Arthur magazine in an interview that trailed the group's self-titled release. "I wanted to sonically represent the history of California bands." That article brought the band to the attention of Rubin, who, after being suitably impressed with the band's live show, released Howlin' Rain's sophomore LP, Magnificent Fiend, on his imprint, American Recordings, and offered to produce its next album.