Crowbar Lifesblood For The Downtrodden
Published Apr 01, 2005
Their first album since 2001s Sonic Excess In Its Purest Form and their eighth studio effort overall, Lifesblood For The Downtrodden finds New Orleans sludge-meisters Crowbar distilling that handful of riffs that theyve stretched into a career and synthesising an album that will go down in doom history as one of their best. With the help of ex-Pantera and Down compadre Rex Brown on bass (and production) and original Crowbar drummer Craig Nunenmacher, guitarist and lead throat Kirk Windstein wades through the still-warm muck with opener "New Dawn, a neo-dirge cut that beckons back to the best from 1998s Odd Fellows Rest. "Slave No More and "Fall Back to Zero are speedier anthems reminiscent of live staples "Self-Inflicted and "All I Had (I Gave). Windstein injects "Angels Wings with thrashier interludes yet plies his gloom with a solid, Cathedral-like progression. "Coming Down is stained with tinges of mellower Pantera, while Windstein indirectly pays tribute to Dimebag Darrells string-bending spirit in the bridges of "Underworld. The relentless "Dead Sun and especially "The Violent Reaction serve as fast/slow change-ups to the numbing riff wreckage of "Holding Something and "Moon. The closing track, "Lifesblood, is more of a free-form acoustic piece cut similar to Led Zeppelin unwinding with Pink Floyds David Gilmour after recording Physical Graffiti. Like 2000s Equilibrium, Lifesblood is a mixed bag of metal influences that harmonically converge to give Crowbar yet another career highpoint.
(Candlelight)