Real talk, took a few weeks off from writing these because nothing really caught my interest. Sometimes its fun digging around for obscure gold (love and hatred are two different kinds of gold). But last few weeks it felt more like work, and that’s not the point of music!

So with that, this album was released a few days ago, and this is definitely a sound I normally have fun with. Louisiana flavored Sludge Metal is a pretty good time, from Acid Bath, Corrosion of Conformity, and Down, there are many ghosts along the Mississippi and they all rock. Crowbar themselves go back to around 1991, so they aren’t fresh faced punks.

This is a refined sound, and I’m looking forward to this one. Let us hope it doesn’t disappoint!

• Artist: Crowbar
• Album: Zero and Below (2022)
• Label: MNRK Records
• Total Track Time:  42:48

The Fear That Binds You starts with some crunchy southern metal rock riffing and then into the doom stomp vibe for the chorus. The vocals come in with a distorted scream almost like they’re being sung through a wind storm, which adds a fun layer to vibe of the song. Very simple lyrical content, but the song has that Sludge groove that is great, awesome cymbal crash fills and just an easy first song into the album. If this is setting the tone for the rest to come, it’s gonna be great. I love the fact they go back into the Doom riffing for the last few lyrics of “Survive, No More Borrowed Time”. It just sounds cool and definitely has interpretation layers given the events of the past few years. Her Evil Is Sacred again, lyrically sparse but the imagery is very cool. “I’m bowing down on bloody knees, I’m crying out, I beg and plead, The unknown world is burning down, It suffocates beneath the ground” – while this is effectively a pre-chorus, it carries a lot between covid and the acts of war from Russia on Ukraine. While nothing has been revolutionary, the simple Sludge riffs and couple of lyrics that turn into topical thinkers helps to sprinkle in some nice buried treasure early on.

Confess to Nothing has some great Doom riffs through the whole thing, almost feels like a Candlemass song. Lyrically it’s about struggling (possibly with heroine from the needle mention) and not giving in to weakness; survival seems to be a big theme so far. Chemical Godz – HELL YEAH – this starts with a really bouncing and groovy Corrosion style of riff. While the reprise is just one sentence repeated with a Doom slow down, the choruses’ ramp back into the groove, so I appreciate where this song goes. Coming off the last song which could have had heroine implications, the mention of chemicals keeps the messaging obvious that it’s about substance abuse. I’m just really digging the song composition. Denial of The Truth now okay, this feels like a pure gothic Doom track. Even the approach to the vocals is echoed but clean. I get some Type O Negative vibes from this song. “I carry on, Determination, You will  survive, With light inside” adds the oddly positive lyrical aspect on top of the heavy Doom riffs, so it sets up a fun juxtaposition but works well.

Bleeding From Every Hole definitely shows their Punk influence. This is of course a very colorful approach to the title and some of the lyrics but it seems like a song about picking yourself back up after you’re at your worst. You get some Sludge riffing as the song pushes towards the end, but it a pretty solid tempo Punk song for the most part. It’s Always Worth the Gain well the guitar isn’t super crunchy, the drums are kind of clear…this feels like an 80s Rock/Metal song. If the vocals were cleaner this almost feels like something any band from that era could pull off. Could be lyrically about the music industry or anything else where competition is rampant, but the song itself is just very unique to the usual Crowbar approach. Crush Negativity there’s an irony between the song being called Crush Negativity and sounding like a kid on suicide watch’s theme song. As a similar theme to a lot of the songs, the latter half does seem to take the initial negative and flip it to a positivity with redemption or determination coming through. It’s just still amusing in my head, what can I say, I’m an asshole.

Reanimating a Lie gives me more Gojira vibes than I was expecting with the lyrics being conceptually about a dying sun, eternal winters and worldwide death. Toward the end we get an interesting Motorhead influenced Metal/Punk tempo before kicking back into a sludge crawl to fade out to. Zero and Below well let’s see what the titular track has to offer to us. Interesting vocal approach immediately makes me think Celtic Frost. Which again, the hope/coming out of the darkness tone is very much relevant in this song. “Please don’t end it all – Close your eyes, don’t fall”, so I like how the whole album is kind of hope and redemption based. But this song is so, melodic and somber…and NANI THE FUCK – is that an acoustic guitar on a Crowbar song? This is a beautifully arranged song and definitely very cool to end on with the atmosphere it creates and builds off of the messaging of the entire album.

Well that was an interesting listen to put it mildly. Whereas the first few songs were very safe and very Crowbar, they definitely experimented outside of their usual methods on this album. Not doing the pure Southern Sludge, throwing in a straight Doom song, a few more Heavy Metal styled songs and ending melodically with an acoustic guitar. I went into the album just expecting a decent but not surprising album, and I’m definitely left thinking more than I expected.

The lyrical tone was pretty consistent throughout except for the song about a dying sun. The style changes didn’t feel drastic within the album, just given the fact that Crowbar has been around 30+ years you don’t always expect certain pivots in style. Beyond a few of the songs being par for the course, they added enough interesting elements to stay fresh without sounding disjointed. Crowbar with a pretty damn good effort in 2022!

Final Judgment: 7/10