Customer Reviews

Equilibrium

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Leveraging their mighty weight against the grain of trendy modern metal landscape New Orlean's sons Crowbar return to set a new balance in aggression and domination. Twelve years and six full length releases into a career that has helped define the NOLA scene Crowbar continue redefining toxic grind. Their gritty, doom inspired sludge weilds an overwhelming power, fully matching the thick buyau air from which it was conceived. Crowbar are truly southern swill, laiden with enough inner thunder to match a hurricane and the girth of the mighty Mississippi river which the storm crosses. The dark, humming distortion of the guitars that has been a Crowbar signature is met with new recording and production techniques, building upon the harmonic experimentation of Odd Fellows Rest. The richer textures add additional dimension and depth and further build upon the doomy Crowbar myth. The lyrics continue to be deep and introspecive, a personal purgery of angst by frontman Kirk Windstein. The delivery however, is somewhat more billowing and haunting with the inclusion of harmonic effects and vocal layering. The addition of Sammy Satan Pierre-Duet to the current line-up lends a feverish Acid Bath-esque element to the already titanic sound. Throughout Equiliberium, Crowbar experiment with tempos and vocal structures to break up the monotonaty of the drawl. Each slab served up has its own musical personality ranging from uptempo crust to near gothic grinds. There are some serious corrosive forces at work in the new ellements of Crowbar's sound, stripping away the expectation of a stero-typical doom-metal offering. Crowbar equate heavy with the weight of the primordial ooze and metal with casket nails, so be prepared to have the lid pryed off your coffin by the southern grit and swampy sludge spewed forth by one of metal's heaviest quartets.

Crowbar has put out an album consistent with their style. It is an extremely hard cd with terrific riffs. If you like the sound of Crowbar and are a true fan you will not be disappointed. They have definitely not left anything to be desired. After listening to this album you will not be searching for any harder music. I do not believe any band compares to their absolute true metal performance unless you throw pantera into the mix. True metal fans will love this one. Just try not to break any personal belongings when listening to this one.

equilibruim, the sixth full length from the sludge/doomcore band crowbar is another good example of southern metal. from the opening track i fell the burning sun to the cover of dream weaver the cd is pretty flawless. some tracks sound alike but some are different for crowbar like to touch the hand of god and dream weaver. sammy doesn't do any solos like on odd fellows rest but has some good riffs, good bridges and breakdowns. this isn't really anything new for crowbar but another good cd. fav tracks: i fell the burning sun, buried once again, command of myself, and equilibrium.

This and "Crowbar" are my favorite Crowbar albums. Of course it has that slow Sabbathesque Crowbar sound! "Buried Once Again", "Dream Weaver", "Euphoria Minus One" and "I Feel the Burning Sun" are the standouts IMO. I can't get over "Dream Weaver" though. Kirk is absolutely amazing on that track. If your new to Crowbar, check this out!!!

Crowbar is niether at thier slowest or fastest here. Piddling somewhere in the middle. Great songs, great riffs... Kinda loose and sloppy with the lyrics, definately not the greatest Crowbar album. Will not stand on it's own in your collection like the others. Including a cover of Dream Weaver kinda, to tell the truth, cheeseballed this outta my stack. Campy, loosely knit, and just not a great Crowbar album. Follow up is 100X better.

This album is very hard. I think it is true Metal eventhough I do not like Metal that much. I listened to it last night and My ears hurt.

"Equilibrium" is yet another great Album by Crowbar. Actually the first Crowbar Album i ever heard, and i've been hooked from then on. This Album seems to be one of their slowest, and some songs aren't as powerful and/or memorable as other songs. Kirk Windstein's vocals, as always, are truly brutal and fit this type of music perfectly. All in all, i tend to think this is still one of Crowbar's best.

The most outstanding songs on this Album would be "I Feel The Burning Sun", "Down Into The Rotting Earth", "Uncovering", "Buried Once Again", "Things You Can't Understand" and "Euphoria Minus One". Those songs are the most brutally heavy, and easily listenable on this CD. "Buried Once Again" has an awesome feel to it. It's both extremely heavy, and almost groovy. And after around 2 minutes, goes into a truly headbanging riff that you wish would never end. The song "Equilibrium" also does this at around the 2:05 minute mark, going into a massive-sounding brutally heavy riff with Kirk Windstein screaming "Power Leading Me". And that's exactly what this Album is. It's about Power. It's the definition of Power.

"Down Into The Rotting Earth" reminds me alot of Crowbar's song, "To Build A Mountain", off their Album "Sonic Excess In It's Purest Form". They both have almost has the same kind of song structure, as it starts off extremely heavy with Kirk Windstein giving his all vocally, then at around the 2:25 minute mark it slows down into a slow-and-sludgey riff that eventually fades away towards the end of the song. "To Touch The Hand Of God", the next song, is a Piano track that i really don't think fits on this CD. Unlike other acoustic songs by Crowbar, this is one song i tend to always skip. But the Album picks up again with the headbanging, heavy song "Uncovering" that will no doubt have every fan throwing the \m/ sign into the air.

The cover song of "Dream Weaver", i've read is one of Kirk Windstein's favourite songs ever. And it's really not that bad of a cover song. They cover it, with Kirk giving his trademark gruff/growls/screaming..whatever you want to call it, but it's very distinct anyway..and the heavy riffing is there too. It's a very slow, sludgey type of (cover) song, that i think is an alright ending to this great Album. Although it's not the "true" ending..because if you fast forward after the cover of "Dream Weaver", you get a hidden track titled "In a Gadda Da Vida" which is another cover song, done originally by a band called Iron Butterfly, i think..it goes for only 1:09 minutes, sounding obviously recorded when they were drunk or something, they do the song with no instruments, just their voices.

Overall, there is enough consistency on this Album to keep any Crowbar fan, who hasn't yet picked this up, happy. I think it's one of their best, and it's very highly recommended to all newcomers as well. Also check out "Sonic Excess In It's Purest Form" and "Lifesblood For The Downtrodden", which shouldn't be missed either.

How can you review a metal album, if you don't like metal! This is powerful doom-laced metal. Heavy, sludgey guitars with powerful grooves! I hate the cover, that's why I deducted a point. Get it!

This CD is good, and shows a lot of promise from Crowbar, but in my opinion the melodies dont move. There is no feeling of aggression or adrenaline as you get in a song like Pantera's "Revolution is my name" when the guitar riffs stop and the power cords start. So...Definitely an angry album, filled with obvious personal experiences from the band, but also boring.