Posted in Whathaveyou on July 31st, 2023 by JJ Koczan
A brand you can trust, Crowbar will head out on the next leg of their forever-tour on Sept. 7, spending just about a month on the road joined by the noise-as-weapon felony-level assault of Primitive Man, which is a hell of a pairing. And they’re playing Dingbatz. Oh, I love it when bands come to New Jersey. It doesn’t happen all the time, but Crowbar have hit my beloved Garden State on the regular for years, decades now. They’re touring ostensibly in support of 2022’s Zero and Below (review here), but also because they’re Crowbar and that’s what they do. And by now, if you don’t know you’re getting a pro-shop top-tier sludge metal show when they arrive, well, now you do. They are the very definition of reliable.
Bodybox join the tour starting on Sept. 12, and as the PR wire informs, they’ll be rolling over/through the following:
CROWBAR Announces US Headlining Tour; Tickets On Sale Now!
CROWBAR today announces a US headlining tour! The twenty-four-date journey begins September 7th in Fort Walton Beach, Florida and runs through October 5th in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Support will be provided by Primitive Man as well as Bodybox, on select dates. Additionally, the band will play a special show with Venom Inc. on October 1st in Iowa City, Iowa. Tickets are on sale TODAY! See all confirmed dates below.
CROWBAR w/ Primitive Man: 9/07/2023 Downtown Music Hall – Fort Walton Beach, FL 9/08/2023 Conduit – Orlando, FL 9/09/2023 The Orpheum – Tampa, FL 9/10/2023 Gramps – Miami, FL w/ Primitive Man, Bodybox: 9/12/2023 Masquerade – Atlanta, GA 9/13/2023 New Brookland Tavern – Columbia, SC 9/14/2023 Asheville Music Hall – Asheville, NC 9/15/2023 The Camel – Richmond, VA 9/17/2023 Broken Goblet – Bensalem, PA 9/19/2023 Dingbatz – Clifton, NJ 9/20/2023 Song & Dance – Syracuse, NY 9/21/2023 Palladium – Worcester, MA 9/22/2023 Saint Vitus Bar – Brooklyn, NY 9/23/2023 Angel City Music Hall – Manchester, NH 9/24/2023 Space Ballroom – Hamden, CT 9/26/2023 Crafthouse – Pittsburgh, PA 9/27/2023 Hobart Art Theater – Hobart, IN 9/28/2023 Reggie’s – Chicago, IL 9/29/2023 Grog Shop – Cleveland, OH 9/30/2023 Pyramid Scheme – Grand Rapids, MI 10/01/2023 Wildwood – Iowa City, IA w/ Venom Inc # 10/02/2023 Red Flag – St Louis, MO 10/04/2023 Cobra – Nashville, TN 10/05/2023 George’s Majestic – Fayetteville, AR # = No Support
CROWBAR released their critically-adored Zero And Below full-length last year on MNRK Heavy. Produced, mixed, and mastered by Duane Simoneaux at OCD Recording And Production in Metairie, Louisiana, Zero And Below is the band’s most unforgivably doom-driven record since their 1998 landmark effort, Odd Fellows Rest. Led by Windstein, with guitarist Matt Brunson, bassist Shane Wesley, and drummer Tommy Buckley, songs like “Chemical Godz,” “It’s Always Worth The Gain,” and “Bleeding From Every Hole” are unapologetic emotional outpourings, with a bare-knuckle resolve alongside its soul-searching vulnerability, reliably delivered with crushing heaviness.
Posted in Whathaveyou on June 6th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
You don’t need me to tell you to go see Crowbar, but in case you do, go see Crowbar. The New Orleans progenitors of sludge metal are closing on 30 years since issuing their landmark self-titled debut, and they head out on this US run supporting their new album, Zero and Below (review here), on MNRK Heavy, formerly E1, bringing Spirit Adrift along for the ride. You should know by now what you’re getting into going to a Crowbar show — they will deliver — but while we’re on the subject of reliability, I want to say what a goddamn comfort it was to have Crowbar doing livestreams during the pandemic lockdown. I know they needed money and that fiscally that’s a poor substitute for touring, etc., but hot shit it was good to know that in a world busy turning itself inside out on multiple fronts, you could still count on Crowbar. May they outlive us all and tour forever.
From the PR wire:
CROWBAR: Summer Headlining Tour With Spirit Adrift Announced; Zero And Below Full-Length Out Now On MNRK Heavy
CROWBAR will return to the road this Summer on a US headlining tour with Spirit Adrift! The Riff Beast Tour will commence on July 22nd at Ripplefest in Austin, Texas, and run through August 27th at Tattoo The Earth Fest in Worcester, Massachusetts. Tickets are on sale now! See all confirmed dates below.
Comments vocalist/guitarist Kirk Windstein, “We are looking so forward to our Summer 2022 headlining tour! We truly believe in our latest album Zero And Below and can’t wait to bring you a great set list of old and new CROWBAR. See you on tour!”
CROWBAR will be touring in support of their critically-adored Zero And Below full-length released earlier this year on MNRK Heavy. Produced, mixed, and mastered by Duane Simoneaux at OCD Recording And Production in Metairie, Louisiana, Zero And Below is the band’s most unforgivably doom-driven record since their 1998 landmark effort, Odd Fellows Rest. Led by Windstein, with guitarist Matt Brunson, bassist Shane Wesley, and drummer Tommy Buckley, songs like “Chemical Godz,” “It’s Always Worth The Gain,” and “Bleeding From Every Hole,” are unapologetic emotional outpourings, with a bare-knuckle resolve alongside its soul-searching vulnerability, reliably delivered with crushing heaviness.
CROWBAR: 7/22/2022 Ripplefest – Austin, TX 7/23/2022 Amplified Live – Dallas, TX w/ Mothership 7/24/2022 The Vanguard – Tulsa, OK w/ Mothership w/ Spirit Adrift: 7/26/2022 Outland Ballroom – Springfield, MO 7/27/2022 Red Flag – St. Louis, MO 7/28/2022 Route 20 – Racine, WI 7/29/2022 Cabooze – Minneapolis, MN 7/30/2022 Cobra Lounge – Chicago, IL 7/31/2022 Piere’s – Ft. Wayne, IN 8/02/2022 Emerson Theater – Indianapolis, IN 8/03/2022 King Of Cups – Columbus, OH 8/04/2022 Montage Music Hall – Rochester, NY 8/06/2022 The Chance Theater – Poughkeepsie, NY 8/09/2022 Saint Vitus – Brooklyn, NY 8/10/2022 Anchor Rock Club – Atlantic City, NJ 8/11/2022 Reverb – Reading, PA 8/12/2022 The Loud – Huntington, WV 8/13/2022 The Broadberry – Richmond, VA 8/14/2022 Local 506 – Chapel Hill, NC 8/16/2022 Archetype – Jacksonville, FL 8/17/2022 Gramps – Miami, FL 8/18/2022 Will’s Pub – Orlando, FL 8/19/2022 Downtown Music Hall – Ft. Walton Beach, FL 8/20/2022 Soul Kitchen – Mobile, AL 8/21/2022 Chelsea’s Live – Baton Rouge, LA 8/23/2022 40 Watt – Athens, GA 8/24/2022 Elevation 27 – Virginia Beach, VA 8/26/2022 Empire Underground – Albany, NY 8/27/2022 Tattoo The Earth Fest – Worcester, MA
CROWBAR: Kirk Windstein – vocals/guitar Matt Brunson – guitar Shane Wesley – bass Tommy Buckley – drums
Posted in Reviews on April 11th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
When we’re keying down after an invariably long day at my house and it’s getting close to The Pecan’s bedtime, we often watch a “bonus-extra” video. Sometimes it’s “Yellow Submarine,” sometimes a Peep and the Big Wide World on YouTube, whatever. Point is, think of today like a bonus-extra for the Quarterly Review after last week. Sometimes we do an extra-bonus-extra too. That will not be happening here.
So, we wrap up today with this bonus-extra batch of 10 records, and yes, as always, I took it easy on myself in backloading the last day of the QR with stuff I knew I’d dig. It’s called self-care, people. I practice it in my own way, usually incorrectly. Nonetheless, here’s 10 more records and thanks for tuning in to the Quarterly Review if you did. Next one is probably early July.
Quarterly Review #51-60:
Crowbar, Zero and Below
Six years after The Serpent Only Lies (review here), New Orleans sludge metal progenitors Crowbar deliver Zero and Below, a dutiful 10-song and 42-minute collection that emphasizes the strength of the current lineup of the band. It should go without saying that more than 30 years on from Crowbar‘s founding, guitarist/vocalist Kirk Windstein knows exactly what he wants the band to be and how to manifest that in the studio and live, and he does that here. The real question is whether “The Fear that Binds You” or maybe even the later “Bleeding From Every Hole” will make it into the touring set, but those are just two of the candidates on a record that feels like it was expressly written for Crowbar fans with a suitably masterful hand, which of course it was. There’s only one Crowbar. Treasure them while you can. And hell’s bells, go see them on stage if you never have. Buy a shirt.
Joined by a litany of musicians and friends he at one point or another called bandmates in Blackfinger and Trouble, as well as Victor Griffin of Pentagram, Place of Skulls, etc., for a lead guitar spot, Eric Wagner‘s solo album, In the Lonely Light of Mourning, takes on an all-the-more-sorrowful context with Wagner‘s untimely death last year. And in many ways, the underlying message of In the Lonely Light of Mourning is the same message that Wagner‘s participation in The Skull for the better part of the last decade reinforced: he still had more to offer. He still had that voice, he still knew who he was as a singer and a songwriter. He still loved The Beatles and Black Sabbath and he was still one of the best frontmen after to do the job for a doom band. I don’t know what kind of archive exists of recordings he may have done before his death, but if In the Lonely Light of Mourning is the last release to bear his name, could there be a better note to close on than “Wish You Well” here?
Recorded and seemingly layered together over a period of years between 2016 and 2020, Ode and Elegy‘s self-titled debut features only its 55-minute eponymous/title-track, and that’s more album conceptually and personnel-wise than most albums are anyway. There are guitar, bass, drums and vocals, and those recordings began in 2016 (vocals were done in 2018), but also a string quartet (recorded in Minneapolis, 2017), a brass section and full choir (recorded in Sofia, Bulgaria, 2020), flute (recorded in London, 2020) and harp (recorded in Manchester, UK, 2020). What the Parma, NY-based outfit make of all this is an organic, neoclassical and folk-informed complexity worthy of headphones for its texture and encompassing in both its heaviest and its most sweeping sections. There’s a vision at work across this span, and from the Behemoth-esque grandiosity of the horns about 33 minutes in to the final payoff and bookending subdued melody, the execution is no less impressive than the scope behind it. The years of effort in making it were not wasted. But how on earth do you write a follow-up for a debut like this?
The thing about the jazzy break in the middle of second cut “A Fist for Crows” (as opposed to a feast?) is that it’s not at all out of place with the lumbering-but-moving heavy noise-rock-toned riffing or the big melodies that surround on Burn the Sun‘s first LP, Le Roi Soleil. After the relatively straightforward opener “Wolves Among Us,” it’s the beginning of the Athenian rockers showcasing their multi-tiered ambitions. “Fool’s Gold” is a short melodic heavy punk rocker, and those elements pop up again throughout, but “Severance” oozes into Deftones-y melody on vocals early and drifts out in psychedelia for much of its second half build, and there’s post-metal to be found in 12-minute closer “Torch the Skies,” but with ambient interludes in “Crawling Flame” and “The Calm Before,” even that’s not accounting for the whole breadth of the nine included pieces. Much to the band’s credit, they pull off their abrupt turns like that in “A Fist for Crows” and the later highlight “Tidal Waves,” while also keeping more charging aggression in their back pocket for the penultimate “Siren’s Call.” Some sorting out to do, but there’s a strong sense of identity in the songwriting.
A two-songer being offered up as a 7″ sacrifice presumably to the antigods of riffy lysergic doom, while, yes, also heralding the Leeds trio’s forthcoming second LP, Cosmology, Amon Acid‘s Demon Rider may be a bite-size slab, but it’s a slab nonetheless of tripped out doom, drawing on Cathedral in the title-track and bringing some of Orange Goblin’s burl to the still-spacious and freaked “Incredible Melting Man” in a whopping 3:43, as the founding UK-via-Greece duo of Sarantis Charvas (guitar, synth, vocals) and Briony Charvas (bass, synth) — as well as singly-named drummer Smith — follow-up their 2020 debut, Paradigm Shift, with a fuller and more realized shove. The synth does more work in their sound than it first seems, and together with the echoing vocals, it brings “Demon Rider” to a darkly psychedelic place. If that’s where Cosmology is headed as well, I guess it’s time to get on your possessed motorcycle and ride it into interstellar oblivion. You knew this day would come. Come on now. Off you go.
Those ever-reliable climbers of Weird Mountain at Forbidden Place Records snagged Mucho Mungo‘s gem of a 2020 debut EP, and with an extra track added, made a first full-length from Moth Bath that shimmers like a reinvented moment where classic prog and garage rock met. For a record that opens with a song called “Bear Attack,” the Madrid three-piece of guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Marco González, bassist/vocalist Adrien Elbaz and drummer/vocalist/keyboardist Santiago Aguilera take a wholly unaggressive approach, digging into psychedelia only so much as it suits their movement-based purpose. That is to say, “Sandworm I” boogies down, and even though “Sandworm II” is comparatively mellow, there’s a space rock shuffle happening beneath those echoing space-out vocals. “Pocket Rocket” devolves in its sub-four-minute stretch but features some choice drumming and Galaga-esque keyboard sounds for atmosphere, while “Blue Nectar” captures a brighter jamminess and “The Moth” signals more cosmic intentions for what’s to come. Sign me up. Familiar sounds that don’t quite sound like anything else.
Bringing Swiss duo Sum of R into the realm of Finland’s weirdo-brilliant Waste of Space — Dark Buddha Rising, Atomikylä, Dust Mountain, a handful of other associated acts — by having founder Reto Mäder add vocalist Marko Neuman and drummer Jukka Rämänen from Dark Buddha Rising was not going to make Lahbryce any less devastating. And sure enough, “Sink as I” unfolds with a genuine sense of immersion-toward-drowning that the vague ambience of “Crown of Diseased” and the no-less-airy-for-being-crushing “Borderline” immediately expand. For its eight songs and 54 minutes, what was a tailor-made Roadburn lineup push deeper. Deeper than Sum of R‘s 2017 debut, Orga (review here), and deeper than many consciousnesses will want to go. The instrumental “The Problem” is actually less challenging, but “Hymn for the Formless” makes short work of the tropes of European post-metal while “Shimmering Sand” and the noise-laden “144th” once more spread out in terms of ambience, and closer “Lust” finally swallows us all and we die. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer species, and what a way to go.
Albatross Overdrive‘s third full-length, Eye See Red, opens with a hearty invitation to “Get Fucked,” and that is but the first of a slew of catchy, hard-edged, punk-informed heavy rock kissoffs. “Eye See Red” is duly frustrated as well, but as “Coming Down” suitably mellows out and “Been to Space” redirects the energy behind the earlier cuts’ delivery, there’s a feeling of the palette broadening on the part of the California-based five-piece, leading to the centerpiece “Bring Love,” the chorus of which sounds aspirational in light of the leadoff, and “Sagittarius” and “Fuente del Fuego” skirt the line between classic punk and biker rock, Albatross Overdrive continue the gritty and brash style of 2019’s Ascendant (review here) but find new reaches to explore. To wit, the nine-minute closer “Shattered” here reaches farther into melody and instrumental dynamic, bringing the different sides together in a way that’s genuinely new for the band while still having their core of songcraft underneath. They’ve well established themselves as a nothin’-too-fancy heavy rock act, but that doesn’t seem to be an aversion to forward progression either. Best of both worlds, then.
To a certain extent, what you see is what you get with Guided Meditation Doomjazz. The Austin-based outfit led by six-string bassist J. Blaise Gans aka Blaise the Seeker conjure a half-hour session, recorded mostly if not entirely live, with a direct intention toward high-order chill and musical adventuring. Across “Warm Me Up,” “Summer,” “Let Me,” “Down” and “It’s Winter Again,” the band — working as the trio of Gans, Greg Perlman and drummer Mathew Doeckel — are fully switched-on and exploratory, and the pieces carved from their jams are hypnotic and engaging. A check-in from a prolific outfit, but with the backing of The Swamp Records, Summer Let Me Down comes across as something of a moment’s realization, placing the listener in the room — all the more with the photography included in the download — with the band as the music happens. Immersion, trance, digging in, vibing, all that stuff applies, but it’s the hiccups and the letting-them-go that feel even more instructive. If you can remember to breathe, it’s just crazy enough to work. Made to be heard more than once, and serves that well.
Everybody’s favorite drone freaks Darsombra — who just might play your house if you pay them, feed them, allow them enough electricity and/or maybe sex them up a little — released the 7:50 single “Fill Up the Glass” on the last Bandcamp Friday as a 24-hours-only offering that was there and gone before I could even grab the cover art to go with it. Rife with spacey, spicy sounds, their interweaving of synth and guitar sounds improvised if it isn’t, rumbling and oozing at the start and drifting joyously into the cosmos over its stretch. No clue whether the song will show up on their next album — as ever, Darsombra are on to the next thing, which is a tour that begins at Grim Reefer Fest in Baltimore and some kind of special offering, presumably a video, for April 20 — but like all their work, “Fill Up the Glass” is evocative and a revelry in creative spirit, and if seeing this gets you on board with checking out any of their more recent work, then I’ll consider it a win regardless of this song’s availability over the longer term. But it is a cool track.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 9th, 2021 by JJ Koczan
New Orleans sludge metal forebears Crowbar have announced their new album, Zero and Below, will see release on March 4 through MNRK Heavy, which appears to be what at some point eOne Heavy became. Fair enough for sundry corporate restructuring. Of more crucial import for the moment — though I hope no one lost their job in the shuffle from one company becoming the other — is the fact that Crowbar have a new video out for the first single from the record, “Chemical Godz.” And yes, it sounds like Crowbar, fast and slow parts and Kirk Windstein‘s vocals.
Whatever more you might ask, I’ve no idea, and one imagines it’ll go over like gangbusters on their impending tour with Sepultura set for early Spring 2022, the whole affair duly coordinated to highlight the record. Fucking. A.
Just off the PR wire:
CROWBAR To Release Zero And Below Full-Length March 4th, 2022 Via MNRK Heavy; New Single/Video “Chemical Godz” Now Playing + Preorders Available
New Orleans, Louisiana sludge metal pioneers CROWBAR will release their long awaited new full-length, Zero And Below, March 4th, 2022 via MNRK Heavy! In celebration, today the band is pleased to unveil the record’s artwork, tracklisting, and first single/video, “Chemical Godz,” now playing.
CROWBAR songs are unapologetic emotional outpourings, with a bare-knuckle resolve alongside its soul-searching vulnerability, reliably delivered with crushing heaviness. Zero And Below, which cements the band’s dense catalog exactly one dozen studio albums deep, is the most unforgivably doomy CROWBAR record since their 1998 landmark effort, Odd Fellows Rest.
Produced, mixed, and mastered by Duane Simoneaux at OCD Recording And Production in Metairie, Louisiana, Zero And Below is reverently old-school, counterbalanced by a resonant melodicism that’s stunningly mature. Songs like “Chemical Godz,” “Bleeding From Every Hole,” and “It’s Always Worth The Gain” demonstrate what CROWBAR does better than any other band: powerful, evocative, and crushingly heavy music. Celebrating a recent 30th anniversary, CROWBAR is led by one of the most beloved figures in heavy metal, riff overlord Kirk Windstein, whose menacing bellow and smooth drawl put resilient, unrepentant strength behind even the most somber odes to suffering.
Comments Windstein of first single, “Chemical Godz,” “We are all so excited to release the song and video for ‘Chemical Godz!’ It’s been nearly two years since the album was completed. It was such a sad time for so many people going through the Covid-19 epidemic and we felt it wasn’t a good time to release any new material. Get ready because the heavy is coming! We hope y’all enjoy the song and video. Stay safe out there!”
Zero And Below will be available on CD, LP, cassette, and digitally. Find preorders at THIS LOCATION.
Zero And Below Track Listing: 1. The Fear That Binds You 2. Her Evil Is Sacred 3. Confess To Nothing 4. Chemical Godz 5. Denial Of The Truth 6. Bleeding From Every Hole 7. It’s Always Worth The Gain 8. Crush Negativity 9. Reanimating A Lie 10. Zero And Below
In conjunction with the release of Zero And Below, CROWBAR will join Sepultura and Sacred Reich for the North America Cuadra Tour 2022. Initially scheduled as a 2020 run, the journey kicks off March 4th and runs through April 9th. Additional support will be provided by Art Of Shock. All tickets previously purchased for the 2020 dates will be honored. See all confirmed dates below.
CROWBAR w/ Sepultura, Sacred Reich, Art Of Shock: 3/04/2022 Ace Of Spades – Sacramento, CA 3/05/2022 The Depot – Salt Lake City, UT 3/06/2022 Oriental Theater – Denver, CO 3/08/2022 Wildwood – Iowa City, IA 3/09/2022 Varsity Theater – Minneapolis, MN 3/10/2022 Rave II – Milwaukee, WI 3/11/2022 Harpo’s – Detroit, MI 3/12/2022 The Forge – Joliet, IL 3/13/2022 Thunderbird Music Hall – Pittsburgh, PA 3/15/2022 Irving Plaza – New York, NY 3/16/2022 Opera House – Toronto, ON 3/17/2022 Corona Theater – Montreal, QC 3/18/2022 Big Night Live – Boston, MA 3/19/2022 Theatre Of Living Arts – Philadelphia, PA 3/20/2022 Soundstage – Baltimore, MD 3/21/2022 House Of Blues – Cleveland, OH 3/23/2022 Blind Tiger – Greensboro, NC 3/24/2022 Masquerade – Atlanta, GA 3/25/2022 Culture Room – Ft. Lauderdale, FL 3/26/2022 The Orpheum – Tampa, FL 3/28/2022 Southport Music Hall – New Orleans, LA 3/29/2022 Come And Take It Live – Austin, TX 3/31/2022 Diamond Ballroom – Oklahoma City, OK 4/01/2022 Warehouse Live – Houston, TX 4/02/2022 GMBG – Dallas, TX 4/03/2022 Rockhouse – El Paso, TX 4/05/2022 The Nile Theater – Phoenix, AZ 4/06/2022 House Of Blues – San Diego, CA 4/08/2022 Belasco Theater – Los Angeles, CA 4/09/2022 UC Theatre – Berkeley, CA
CROWBAR: Kirk Windstein – vocals/guitar Matt Brunson – guitar Shane Wesley – bass Tommy Buckley – drums
