Crowbar
Life's Blood For The Downtrodden

THE REVIEW

...2005 was a wonderful year in terms of record releases, including Black Label Society, Corrosion of Conformity, the return of Eye Hate God, and Crowbar.

These latter ones, the founding fathers of sludge metal, are back four years after the excellent Sonic Excess In It's Purest Form (it's impossible for me to forget nihilistic melodies like The Lasting Dose and Thru The Ashes...), with 'Life's Blood For The Downtrodden'. I've been following the band for several years, and I can say that with this latest CD, they have achieved an impressive level of maturity; once again, the lineup has undergone some changes, with Craig Nunenmacher on drums (now also with Black Label Society), and on bass, just for this occasion, Rex Brown (ex Pantera, Down), while Kirk Wendstein takes on the role of guitars, singing with his unmistakable vocal timbre. The production, entrusted to Rex and Warren Ricker, is excellent, with a great emphasis on the heavy drumming and the thick and melancholic guitar riffs; this time the bass is clearer than in the past, where it was almost absent. With this premise, all you have to do is close your eyes and inhale the dark feelings that the myth Kirk Weindstein feels, take a look at the lyrics, to create the right decadent atmosphere...

The songs are all to be savored to embark on a rough, funereal, angry, and damn rational journey. The band does an excellent job conveying the blackest melancholy and anguish, with heavy riffs like boulders, but not only that, more "intense" tracks like the third "Angels Wings", or "The Violent Reaction" provide the right balance to this album's character. Some stylistic "innovations" are decisive and surprisingly positive, as in the enchanting "Moon" where echoes of the best Paradise Lost can be heard, or in "Coming Down" where it seems like listening to an even more doom version of Black Sabbath. I was greatly surprised by Kirk's vocal parts, decisively improved, not on the technical side, but on the practical one; he has abandoned certain claustrophobic solutions of past albums, especially the early ones (give a listen to the title track and you'll see, an acoustic song to tears).

Doom parts that adapt to more "core" parts, passing through the most ruthless metal, this has been Crowbar's trademark for at least 10 years, if you have no idea what sonic heaviness is, give a listen to any album, maybe start with this one which is perhaps the most accessible along with the penultimate 'Sonic Excess In It's Purest form'.