Artist: Crowbar
Label: Century Media
Release: 2011
Length: 52:07
Rating: 4.5/5
It took a whole six years for sludge metal veterans and NOLA (short for New Orleans, Louisiana) scene pioneers Crowbar to get back into the studio. In the meantime, frontman and founder Kirk Windstein did time in Down and Kingdom of Sorrow, quit the excessive drinking, and last year gathered a completely new crew around him to record the long-awaited new record from the sludge pioneers. Sever the Wicked Hand is the first Crowbar album Kirk has made totally sober, so the big question when the news dropped was whether the music would suffer for it. Booze was, after all, a huge part of the Crowbar sound.
Right from the first moments of the sonic bomb that is Isolation (Desperation), it’s clear: not in the slightest. On Sever the Wicked Hand, Crowbar sound even more brutal, even heavier and even more emotional than before. It’s honestly surprising that the guys managed to make a record that stands right up there with the best moments of the Crowbar discography, especially since Windstein once again went with a completely new lineup. The guiding principle of the new album is that classic Crowbar slow-rolling, growling sound, powered by deeply and heavily tuned guitars and Windstein’s anguished vocals. You can clearly hear that Crowbar found their inspiration in the forefathers Black Sabbath, since plenty of riffs recall Iommi’s masterpieces, only Crowbar sound even filthier and, as one of the first, added Southern flavors to the basic doom sound. After a spin of this record, all that’s left to do is put a pot of jambalaya on the stove and pour yourself a tall glass of Crown Royal whiskey, three deci’s worth. Crowbar, with their slow, muddy-sounding riffs, are like the slow-flowing, dirty Mississippi, which, despite its slow and lazy current, hides brutal rapids and deadly crocodile jaws beneath the surface. Those jaws are played to perfection by simple but effective guitar lines that hit with the force of a ten-ton hammer and turn the slow drift down the Mississippi into a merciless fight for survival among dangerous currents, alligators and snakes. The ultra-heavy sound is topped off by Kirk’s suffering, deeply emotional vocals, which, with an unbridled performance, tie together the cathartic nature of the deep, confessional lyrics, perhaps best summed up by the first line of The Cemetery Angels: “You Gave Me Wings Then Took the Sky Away.” Windstein occasionally swaps the growl for beautiful clean vocals, and out of the bubbling stew of slowly rolling, mighty riffs, outstanding melodic guitar harmonies break through to the surface at just the right moments. Windstein and the boys also make sure the slow drift down the dirty rivers of the South never gets boring or monotonous. Sever the Wicked Hand is full of such thrilling moments – the unbridled aggression of the brutally fast The Cemetery Angels and As I Become One, the funeral-hymn morbid riffs in Liquid Sky and Cold Black Earth, the chilling instrumental interlude backed by choir singing in A Farewell to Misery, …
Sever the Wicked Hand is proof that Crowbar are back at least as strong as on their last studio record, if not way stronger. The new album may even be the most aggressive release of the sludge giants’ career, and it’s definitely the most confessional and brutally honest. One minute it’s merciless and murderous like the propeller of an airboat cruising through the Louisiana swamps, the next it’s calm and slow like the Mississippi. Sever the Wicked Hand is a testament in which Windstein proves the power of his songwriting… by planting himself at the mouth of the Mississippi and bellowing NOLA, give me power! And it gave him power like nothing else on earth!
Lineup
Kirk Windstein – vocals, guitar
Matthew Brunson – guitar
Patrick Bruders – bass
Tommy Buckley – drums
Production
Kirk Windstein
Tracklist
1. Isolation (Desperation)
2. Sever The Wicked Hand
3. Liquid Sky And Cold Black Earth
4. Let Me Mourn
5. The Cemetery Angels
6. As I Become One
7. A Farwell To Misery
8. Protector Of The Shrine
9. I Only Deal In Truth
10. Echo An Eternity
11. Cleanse Me Heal Me
12. Symbiosis
