For no less than 32 years now Kirk Windstein has been leading Crowbar into battle, armed with a sonic arsenal of weaponised riffs that can crush concrete into dust. As such, when their impending twelfth album ‘Zero and Below’ arrived early for review I was just plain and simply astounded by how much the band had mellowed, embracing instead a gentler psychedelic sound, and even straying into the realm of the ballad. Is it the unusual times we live in that has led to a new writing and performing style? With so much darkness in the world has the ‘Beard of Doom’ decided to introduce some light into his body of work, after all, his recent solo album ‘Dream In Motion’ included a Jethro Tull cover of all things? Or am I just full of shit and talking bollocks? Yep, I’m full of shit and bollocks it is!
‘The Fear That Binds You’ picks up from where ‘The Serpent Only Lies’ finished in 2016 (damn, it’s been six years!) with a relentless auditory assault, the heavy bludgeon of guitar, bass and drums acting like shock troops before the invasion of Kirk’s growl. The pace is slowed further in ‘Her Evil Is Sacred’, the tempo dragging to a near crawl as Windstein’s voice becomes more and more pained, a sound that can surely only be created with a daily regime of gargling with cask strength whisky. Just in case a crawl is too fast for your tastes, ‘Confess To Nothing’ slows things down even further, the song pouring forth from the speakers like a torpid black tar tsunami, engulfing all before it with its inexorable advance.
Don’t worry that all will be too slow, ‘Chemical GODZ’ following with an initial thumping chug that alternates with a sonic slog to accompany the angry yet eloquent lyrics that are so much a trademark of the band. After this comparative sprint Crowbar brings the pace down a whole bunch of levels with ‘Denial of Truth’, and whilst I joked about a psychedelic sound, this track is by far the most mellow on the album, echoing effects being added to vocals that are sung rather than snarled, albeit the psychedelia is one where the listener has deliberately sought out the brown acid for a trip to the dark side rather than seeking a pastoral idyll. The heavy returns in spades with ‘Bleeding From Every Hole’, bassist Shane Wesley channelling his inner Lemmy with the opening bars before Tommy Buckley adds some utterly Philthy beats; if this one doesn’t have the audience pitting at live shows, I’ll be damned if I know what will. Even more classic influences are heard in ‘It’s Always Worth The Gain’, having as it does an almost rocky sound, and occasional guitar harmonies that have taken the DNA of Thin Lizzy’s double axe attack and soaked it in sludge. Not a single track is a miss, and ‘Zero and Below’ is closed out with the title track that distils all the elements that make up Crowbar’s sound into a single five and a half minute offering.
‘Zero and Below’ does not represent some avant-garde new direction for Crowbar, and in these bizarre and changing times, I for one am bloody glad of that. Rather it is a heavy as fuck addition to their canon of work, laden with neck wrecking beats that demand to be blasted through stacks of amps in clubs that are being shaken to their very foundations by the guitars of Brunson and Windstein. In stark contrast to just how friendly he is off stage, on this album Kirk Windstein remains as full of venom as ever, and Crowbar provides the perfect soundtrack against which to clench your teeth and raise a fist to the whole world.
(9/10 Spenny)
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