Review by Daniel for Crowbar - Crowbar (1993)

I've been quite a fan of New Orleans' sludge metallers Crowbar's 1990's releases since first investigating them around fifteen years ago now. None of them thoroughly blew me away but all five of the band's early full-lengths kept me more than interested, often just lacking a little bit more in the production department to reach their full potential. I recently revisited Crowbar's 1991 debut album "Obedience Thru Suffering" & found that I'd been underrating it all these years though which left me wondering whether I might have done something similar with the rest of those records too, particularly as I'm a much bigger fan of sludge metal than I was at the time of first hearing them. And that's brought me here, to my first revisit to Crowbar's 1993 self-titled sophomore album since that early discovery session.

"Crowbar" is another seriously heavy record from this mob & you'll rarely find a more oppressive release either to be honest. The guitars are heavily down-tuned but they haven't left much light at the end of the tunnel as they lack much in the way of brightness. This allows the grunted vocals of guitarist Kirk Windstein (Down/Kingdom of Sorrow) stand out very clearly in the mix & they aren't exactly gonna cheer you up either, particularly with song titles like "Existence Is Punishment" & "I Have Failed" being par for the course. The riffs fall into the classic Crowbar blueprint, all being very simple yet unanimously crushing. There's no place for flashy guitar solos here as Crowbar harness the hardcore punk blueprint of song construction, keeping things short but impactful. The hardcore edge that the band was so evident on "Obedience Thru Suffering" is still very clearly in effect here which keeps things firmly in the sludge metal camp rather than drifting off into doom territory, particularly in some of the more energetic riff work & in Kirk's vocal delivery which sounds like it's agonizing for him to spit his words out.

Much like the debut, "Crowbar" is a pretty consistent record when you look at it holistically. It doesn't contain any obvious duds & there are a couple of genuine highlights included too in the wonderful cover version of Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter" (which works ridiculously well in a sludge metal format) & the devastatingly heavy "Existence Is Punishment". The album does start a little slowly though with the first three tracks being some of the least impressive & things don't really start to heat up until the middle of the album. The back end is particularly solid though & I find myself being drawn to the band's slower, doomier material more than I do their brief dalliances with a more up-tempo feel such as the very popular "All I Had (I Gave)".

"Crowbar" is another very solid record from the band & yet again I find myself feeling like I've underrated it in the past, perhaps not quite being able to relate to its suffocating production job as much as I do now that I've had a lot more exposure to the sludge metal sound. Like most people, I do think "Crowbar" is a better record than "Obedience Thru Suffering" but the difference in quality isn't as stark as some would have you believe. I think "Crowbar" just has more highlights which gives it a slight edge but neither album do too much wrong & both come highly recommended for all the battle-hardened sludgers out there.

For fans of Acid Bath, Eyehategod & Kingdom of Sorrow.