US sludge metal band Crowbar are back with their eleventh album. For this album, Kirk Windstein went back to the early albums to try and recapture the mindset of the band in the early days. As a result the album has some of that early album feel, but with a modern feel mixed in too. Some of the songs here capture the distortion that was present on the early albums, while other songs don’t do so much of that. Obviously being Crowbar then you can expect plenty of crushingly heavy riffs.
The album kicks off with “Falling while rising” – check out the video and hear it for yourself.
One song that stands out is “Song of the dunes”. It’s a slower song with a bit more focus given to the vocals. It’s a powerful song that really grabs your attention despite the slower softer feel to it.
With the exception of a few songs such as “I am the storm” with it’s faster pace, the whole album just feels a bit too much like they’ve found their comfort zone and don’t want to stray out of it – yes it’s nice and heavy, but it just feels like they’re holding back at times, so what could have been an outstanding album is merely a great album.
A great album from Crowbar. Yes I’d like to see them stray more from their comfort zone, but then again when their comfort zone is producing songs that are this good then plenty of people will be happy to hear them just churning out more of the same.
Track listing:
1. Falling while rising
2. Plasmic and pure
3. I am the storm
4. Surviving the abyss
5. The serpent only lies
6. The enemy beside you
7. Embrace the light
8. On holy ground
9. Song of the dunes
10. As I heal
- 11.79