Crowbar

One of heavy music's most underrated, yet influential, acts, New Orleans, LA-based sludge monsters Crowbar established a new pace for hardcore-influenced metal, uniting embroiled passion with beefy riffs and imposing attitude, an attack that set the stage for current mainstays such as Lamb of God, Hatebreed and many more. Still, over the past 20 years, their self-proclaimed "fat music for fat people" hasn't gained the notoriety it deserves outside of cultish circles. Looking to change that, while ushering in the band's forthcoming new material (slated for a tentative 2011 release), eOne reissues three of the band's formative offerings: 1993's eponymous sophomore release, 1994's Live +1 and third effort Time Heals Nothing. As the latter's name readily proves, with the sharp riffs, brutal energy and guttural, primeval attack of all three affairs, there's nothing lax, softened or dull about Crowbar even years later. From the personal slant and raw power of Crowbar through Live +1's energy (although it's the runner-up of these efforts, leaving one to wonder why debut Obedience Though Suffering wasn't a part of the package) and Time Heals Nothing's more refined approach, this formative stage of an enduring band is just as important and influential as the day these works were first created. In fact, some have even greater impact with the wisdom of age and experience. Vocalist/guitarist Kirk Windstein's lyrics prove incredibly biting and emotionally poignant for a bunch of dudes that look as though they'd send your eyeballs through the back of your skull with the slightest provocation. Exciting with its bleak, scratchy vocal delivery and lumbering, mid-tempo pace, offset by explosive passages, such a triumvirate not only incites reflective enthusiasm for the salad days of post-crossover but creates a great deal of anticipation for their first new music in just over a half-decade.