Crowbar [Original recording reissued]

Crowbar, Crowbar (90's) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 3, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued
• Label: Spitfire
• ASIN: B00004YX2V
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #115,299 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. High Rate Extinction

2. All I Had (I Gave)

3. Will That Never Dies

4. Fixation

5. No Quarter

6. Self-Inflicted

7. Negative Pollution

8. Existence Is Punishment

9. Holding Nothing

10. I Have Failed

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HEAVY!!!!, February 28, 2004

By 

Dokter Pogo (New Orleans) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crowbar (Audio CD)

In 1995, my guitar player called me and told me that we would be opening for Crowbar at Zeppelin's in Fat City (about 8 square blocks right outside of New Orleans, containing the city's premier metal bars). For the past year, all I had been listening to was this CD. So, you can imagine my excitement as I pictured my little group playing with the heaviest band in the world. But it wasn't such a good idea after all. We sounded paper thin against the mammoth guitars of Crowbar, and they figuratively spanked us, right in front of hundreds of fans. We stupidly agreed to play another show a few weeks later in Slidell, LA, and once again, we came off as the Lollipop Guild. Lesson: NEVER go up against something this heavy and expect to come out with your dignity in tact. This album set the pace for heavy in the mid-nineties, and very few even came close to it's mastery of molten sludge riffs. The vocals scream of pain and hopelessness, with "Self-Inflicted" and "I Have Failed" being the ultimate self-loather's anthems...and I just can't put into words how freakin' insanely heavy the guitars are. They crunch and roar with a ferocity that is STILL unmatched, almost a decade later. How about this word for a description: chuggachunkawaaaachiggachunk...yell this word in a really low James Earl Jones voice, screaming it through a microphone hooked up to a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier guitar amp. Try that, and it might be close to what you can expect from this album. Every song is full of some of the sickest riffing this side of Black Sabbath, and the laid back tempos push the songs along like barges on the Mississippi River. Definitely not for the meek listener. Wear protective gear while playing this album.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Breakdown......, April 28, 2005

By 

BLEEKER (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crowbar (Audio CD)

I got his CD when it first released back in 93. I remember saying to myself.... holy $H*! this is genious! Crowbar essencially took the breakdowns found in NYC hardcore music, wound them down to 2 miles an hour and turned them into full fledged songs!

I honestly didnt keep up with Crowbar after thier 2nd release. I never realized they released so many CDs. I've heard a few of them but quite frankly their first 2 CDs still stand out as their best efforts.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a straight up, tell-it-like-it-is pounding doom sludge classic, July 11, 2006

By 

the eclectic extrovert (PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crowbar (Audio CD)

This is crazy in some ways, but at one time this album was in my top 20 of all time. It could easily be called "Odes to the Unappreciated," in terms of lyrical content and mood. ("ALL I had I Gave," "Self-Inflicted," etc.)

Now, doom metal has many sub-genres, and these guys fit the sludge-rock, straight doom label. This can in no way be mistaken with goth-tinged doom, or deathdoom, or whatever. But, if you like something that simply pummels you, makes you look at yourself in the mirror and admit that you don't like a great deal of what you see, while still making it clear that you won't accept trash from anyone else, this is just what the doctor ordered. I mean, how can you go wrong with titles like "Existence is Punishment," and "Holding Nothing" (the title chorus, BTW, drawn out in sort of a mournful chant, overlayed with barking, punk-tinged verses)? And "I Have Failed" is one of the most heart-honest, tortured songs I've ever heard. Now that I think of it, reading these titles alone makes you feel like you've leafed through Kafka cliffnotes.

Without question that SPIRIT, if not musical style, of emotionally depleted Delta blues rings through (which they are from the swamplands of "Nawlins," LA.), minus the songs about being dumped by lovers (though these songs might work well in those cases as well). It hits the same vein as Vitus, but with less wah-wah overkill, and minus the twinge of Ozzy vocals. The vocals are delivered in the punk-or-thrash style, but pained, strained, and slowed down--angry and harsh, yet not shouting. It may be the vocals, exhortated almost more than sung, that add to the feeling of blues, though this is throbbing, pounding, tortured swamp rock metal all the way.

In general, if you can't decide whether to 1) put down your whiskey, leave the bar, and go home with a newfound conviction to clean up your act and "get your head on straight," or to 2) order another (minus the "rocks"), blame the world for your troubles, and start a brawl to relieve the pain, Crowbar has been there too, bro,' and they're more than willing to take you with them.