When one thinks of heavy, thick and
driving music, one's thoughts inevitably turn
to the heavyweights of active music, Crowbar.
Formed years ago on the bayous of New
Orleans, this imposing quartet have managed
to create worldwide acclaim through powerful
releases and equally massive amounts of
touring, not to mention feature video clips on
cult-followed programs such as Beavis &
Butthead.
This highly anticipated release was charted in
the top 5 at metal radio and received the
strongest reviews of the bands career.Black
clouds, hot sheets of wind, electricity in the
air, destruction at hand. Hurricane season in
The Big Easy? Not quite. It's actually Crowbar,
native sons of NOLA, respected deliverers of
deliverance, preparing to pound the coast (and
indeed all the coasts) with a new slab of metal
anguish called Equilibrium. Co-creators of a
tight-knit and respected metal scene that
includes Corrosion Of Conformity, Eyehategod,
Acid Bath, Soilent Green, Down and Pantera's
Phil Anselmo, Crowbar have been a ten-year
testimony to the core tenets of the NOLA
sound, a horrific mixture of English doom and
swamp-monster sludge, creeping towards
slo-mo hardcore in their middle years, but
never giving up the surging but deliberate power
and insight that distinguished early records like
'92's Obedience Through Suffering and '93's
Crowbar.
Now a decade later, with five studio albums
and two compilations under their heaving belts,
the band are set to deliver Equilibrium, an
intelligent, textured piece of work that expands
upon the dark melodic complexity of '98's Odd
Fellows Rest. Slightly more ornate, and
slightly more reverent of true spiritual doom
(think Sabbath, Trouble, Cathedral),
Equilibrium is a masterwork of cosmic
depression. But out of the dark, Kirk shines
the light. "A lot of kids write in and people talk
to me, telling me how much they love the
lyrics, and I appreciate it. Theme-wise, we
have no fictional songs whatsoever. We've
never written about anything other than what
reality is to us. It's just about life's ups and
downs, finding strength through hard times. I
think a lot of people can identify. A lot of the
songs will mean one thing to me, and
someone else will read it, and see something
totally different, but they can still find
something positive in it." "It may sound odd,
but the lyrics happen the day I decide to track
the vocals," reveals Kirk, somewhat
shockingly. "We do all the music first, and
when everything is done, I just go in, sit down
with a notebook, and whatever comes off the
top of my head, whatever mood I'm in that day,
whatever I am feeling, I write down. Then I go in
and come up with a melody, and sing it right
on the spot."
Kirk confirms the band's newfound sense of
musical adventure, a creative work ethic that
has resulted in songs that roll with a majesty
and authority that packs a seriousness not
found within other NOLA sound bands. "Odd
Fellows Rest was a big transition for us in a
positive way. I guess we just got to the point
where we had to go one way or the other, and
this album is just a continuation of the
direction of that album. Basically, when we
started out, the whole idea of the band was to
be as heavy as we could, but play slower
songs with melody, in direct opposition to
most of the bands who were doing faster,
technical thrash. And for whatever reason, we
put up certain barriers and were afraid to move
past the initial idea of what the band was. We'd
write songs and say, 'we can't use this, it's too
wimpy, it doesn't sound like Crowbar.' And
when we got older, we felt like 'screw that, why
not just go for it?' By no means did we try to
write anything commercial. It's just that we
brought in more melody, especially into the
vocals, where originally it was more
aggressive, hardcore vocals. And song-wise,
we used to just take a bunch of riffs and glue
them together and call them a song, and now
we're trying to actually write songs and the
whole vibe is really progressing."
Swamp-livin' second guitarist Sammy, who cut
his teeth with the legendary and sadly missed
Acid Bath, confirms that the band has reached
deep into the muck of the past, and sludged
forward at the same time. "Actually, there
aren't that many adjustments from the last
one. But in a way it's going back to the roots of
Crowbar, more like the doomy, slow,
crunchy-style, New Orleans sound, with a few
more experimental things we found through
jamming. It's a mixture of everything this time
around. We've combined the old Crowbar
sound with the last album's sound."
"I guess you could say the riffs are a little
busier," adds Sammy, "more things going on
within them, more movement on the fretboard.
Not so simple, but simple sounding, you
know?
The riffs I was writing in Acid Bath were busier
than what Kirk was used to with Crowbar, and I
guess some of that old kind of fever came in
when I was actually writing with him, you know
(laughs)?"
Equilibrium's smothering weight is undeniably
prime Crowbar, offering wide panoramic
grooves filled with truckloads of rumbling
guitars. It is a sound that has been piled on
through the band's relationship with Keith
Falgout and Festival Studios in hometown New
Orleans.
"We basically felt that with the last record we
had a winning combination with Keith,
"explains Kirk. "He is a producer, but he acts
just as much as engineer, and him and I
together co-produced the album. We work
together really well, and he comes up with a lot
of good ideas."Kirk talks a bit about the studio
work. "We did some different stuff with the
guitar. I used a talk box on 'Command Of
Myself' and I sang through a Leslie cabinet on
a couple of songs. In the past everything was a
3 1/2 minute song, no effects, no guitar effects,
no vocal effects. Boom.
Go to the next song. And now I think we've
branched out and popped a few surprises here
and there with different tunings, different
tempos, more complicated vocal melodies."
The results can be felt on tracks like 'I Feel
The Burning Sun', 'Buried Once Again' and
'Uncovering' which find Crowbar deaf, dumb and
blind with depressive metal, Kirk adding
searing and scarring dimensions to his vocals
that are the perfect emotive balm to the
crashing waves of traditional timeless metal
composed around his presence. It's a whirlwind
tour of choice dark musics, touchstones like
Type O Negative, My Dying Bride, and even
Pink Floyd coming to mind, all getting a
reverential nod within the large and looming
framework that is this unique hard music
resource.
But it's not all thud, release, then thud again.
'To Touch The Hand Of God' features a
sobbing, monk-like vocal from Kirk, simple
piano from new drummer (and writer of the
track) Sid Montz, and a backing track of
torrential rain. Kirk explains: "That one is about
dying, and given the arrangement, it has a
really spiritual feel to it. It was written as a
segue, Sabbath-style. Sid plays the piano
really good, and we thought instead of trying to
do a guitar segue, why don't we have
something on piano? So he came up with the
beginning part and then he ended on this one
chord, and I said, 'you know what? If you had
just one more chord to it, then I could do
vocals on it,' which is how it became a song."
Sammy reacts to the track. "I thought it was
actually very, very cool that we have that on
there. It shows us not being stuck in a rut,
Crowbar just pounding away, 24-7. The piano
thing is a step forward, quite an
accomplishment for us to get away with it
without being shot down or called sellouts. I
thought it was really cool the first time I heard
it. I was extremely surprised."
Second surprise is the band's caustic,
collapsed, and triumphantly successful cover
of Gary Wright's 'Dream Weaver', probably the
last song that one would think fits the Crowbar
canon. "It's always been a song I liked a lot,"
reveals Kirk. "I always thought it was a killer
song, but the chorus was so happy and
upbeat. But the first night when we were
tracking everything, Keith said dude, why don't
you try 'Dream Weaver', and I said 'the chorus
is just too damn happy sounding.' So we just
kind of rewrote the chorus in this descending
kind of doomy pattern, with different drums and
different guitars, instead of this upbeat major
key thing. But I sang it the same way. We
never rehearsed it, sticks and we just went for
it. We just played and gave signals to each
other. I was drunk by that time, it was late at
night, two or three in the morning, and we
ended up doing the whole song that night. I
couldn't even remember the lyrics. We just laid
everything down and we listened back and we
were just laughing because it was just a big
joke, and then we started going, 'this is
actually pretty killer.' So we just decided to
stick it on the record to see what kind of
reaction we got, which has been pretty good.
Even Phil (Anselmo, from Pantera) was like,
'what the fuck are you doing?' And then I
played it for him, and he said, 'dude, you
actually pulled it off.'" It's a fitting close to a
record of apocalyptic, wide-angled sludge,
synths and guitars mind-melding in a
psychedelic swirl to the finish, Kirk delivering
an echoed treatment of one of the clearest
vocals he's ever cut.
Touring for Equilibrium will of course be heavy,
as heavy as the dents Crowbar has inflicted
upon the psyches of tens of thousands of fans
the world over. Kirk has found a way to turn
personal pain, and the pain of his many friends
within the tight New Orleans scene, into a
mantra of spiritual redemption through the
catharsis of volume. Plug into Equilibrium and
feel that calming electric surge for yourself.
