With a host of side projects filling the time of the assorted band members, not least the THC soaked stoner super group Down monopolising the guitar and writing talents of front man Kirk Windstein, it has been a whole six years since Crowbar last bludgeoned the masses with their epic ‘Lifesblood For the Downtrodden’ in 2005. With such a massive gap, lesser bands might find it hard to carry on with any feeling of continuity. Let’s face it, most bands don’t even last six years, let alone blast back from such a long hiatus with the power and triumph that Crowbar has with ‘Sever The Wicked Hand’.
‘Isolation (Desperation)’ rips out of the speakers with the sort of down-tuned sludgy riff that set Crowbar so far above the rest of the New Orleans metal scene back in the early nineties. The guitar work is slow and doom ridden, promising to crush chest cavities when played live in the dirty cellar venues that are the true home of this sound, Windstein’s vocals being as angry and hate filled as ever, whilst on title track ‘Sever The Wicked Hand’ there is a punk quality that positively drips venom, his uncompromising sound not softened by the comparative commercial success touring with Down. This dark sound is enhanced further on ‘Liquid Sky And Cold Black Earth’, a ponderous juggernaut of a track that rolls forward with inexorable pace of a tank bearing down on its enemy, grinding all before it.
Don’t, however, think that Crowbar has nothing but a sledgehammer to bludgeon their fans with in their arsenal, as their sound is so much more then pure aural battering. The guitar work, whilst slow and heavy, has snatches of subtlety and harmonies, punctuating the sonic assault with perfectly matched twin guitar riffing. Harmonies even appear on the vocals of ‘Let Me Mourn’ and “The Cemetery Angels’; before you worry, Crowbar are not going Girls Aloud rather the dark harmonies of Alice In Chains, lending fresh nuances of darkness to the album. A brief respite from the pummelling comes mid album in the haunting and lyric free ‘A Farewell To Misery’, before the attack recommences with ‘Protectors Of The Shrine’, a track blackened with buzz saw guitars and double kick drum beats.
After such a long gap between albums, I expected ‘Sever The Wicked Hand’ to suffer from a lack of continuity. Rarely have I been so glad to be wrong. From start to finish it is a superlative release from a band that has come back from a hiatus focused, hungry, poised for battle, and ready to prove they are every bit the force they were years ago, and I hope, for years to come.
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