One band member down and the last Creedence Clearwater Revival album, it’s no coincidence. Mardi Gras should never have happened. Pendulum already sounded as though the band were on thin ice, and studio tensions, as thrilling as they are on the A-side to the band’s penultimate album, are not tempered here. Tom Fogerty would leave, John Fogerty would take further control, and the band would stumble through one more album at the start of the 1970s. Part of the problem for Mardi Gras is John Fogerty takes a step back. What few songs he contributes here are welcome additions, though cannot alone save the state of the album. Fact is, Fogerty led the charge in the studio, on the album, and when performing the songs because he was best equipped to do so. Anybody doubting that can take a listen to Mardi Gras and hear what happens when Creedence Clearwater Revival start sharing the workload.
Mardi Gras has a clear problem, it tries to be a country album. Creedence Clearwater Revival had much success in blurring those tones with a swampy, rock and roll sound, but when they play up the countrified tones, they find themselves unable to stand out. It makes unremarkable work feel not unnecessary, but unjustified because the genre switch-up is more a regression than an expansion. Lookin’ for a Reason is a rumbling, low effort piece that neither challenges the band nor the listener. Not every song must do that, of course, but when you hit the highs Fogerty did on previous releases, stripping all of that away to offer a simple song structure is bizarre. If there were any deeper meaning to the lyrics, some interest to latch onto, then it could be forgiven. Creedence Clearwater Revival may want to push our attention elsewhere, but Mardi Gras pushes that attention off of the band entirely. Similar trouble on Take it Like a Friend, a truly forgettable piece of work.
None of it is remarkable in the disastrous sense, and that makes Mardi Gras more of a dud than it should be. It’s not a Cut the Crap experience with The Clash, or some Knocked Out Loaded by Bob Dylan mess. Mardi Gras is plodding, safety first music that never mounts the same courageous writing or career-defining instrumental purpose as any previous release. Flickers of life can be heard on What Are You Gonna Do, though it’s too little, too late at this point for the band. Just when they’re building a bit of momentum, a clanger like Sail Away is dropped. Credit to Creedence Clearwater Revival for predicting a decade of The Beach Boys’ music with the desire to sail away from the struggle but never having the musical clarity or strength to chart a course.
Such limited scope for the rock and roll style Creedence Clearwater Revival were burning through just a few years prior is fascinating. Mardi Gras is an out-of-the-blue drop in quality for the band. Though its personnel change will have affected the routine and rhythm of the group, there’s no way it can drag out their worst work, it’s not that seismic a change. Fogerty sounds solid on the songs he features on, though he struggles to bring much to this last Creedence Clearwater Revival project. Like many great bands of the time, the group ended on a dud and has been left untouched for decades. By making himself the focus of the band. Fogerty has fair licence to keep performing these songs, though it’s rather telling that so few Mardi Gras songs are brought back to the stage. There’s no reason to revive them.
