crowbar - zero and below

wow, what a strong effort of almighty crowbar. i don't know why, but i couldn't imagine the band to deliver such a beast once more. glad i was proven wrong. top notch crowbar material. get involved! 900 copies on ghostly blue vinyl. eone heavy. 2022.

crowbar - sever the wicked hand

yet another re-issue of a crowbar album by e-one heavy (or mnrk heavy as the company is called now). i passed on a few because i have previous pressings but with 'sever the wicked hand' it was a no-brainer to get a copy because i was severly lacking a vinyl copy of the album. 500 copies on opaque apple red vinyl. none heavier.

crowbar - time heals nothing

i missed out on the first vinyl pressing of this rager from last year like a goddamn amateur and thus was very happy about the second round. e-one made these beautiful clear with black centre and red/yellow splatter edition and there was no way i was missing out again. one of my favourite crowbar records!

crowbar - sonic excess in its purest form

back when i bought my first crowbar piece of vinyl at kiel's blitz records store, i also held a copy of "sonic excess in its purest form" in hands but only walked away with "odd fellows rest". in hindsight i regretted that move quite a bit because i found it hard to obtain a copy afterwards. at one point all reasonable priced copies vanished from ebay and discogs and i never saw another one sitting in physical store.

i thought, i just wait for an ebay auction to get my hands on the record and focused on other things. time passed and i forgot about the album. when i finally saw the band live with converge in leipzig this year, i was blown away by their show. crowbar was close to beat converge to second place in terms of intensity and so their appearance served as great reminder to get that record eventually. just out of curiosity i checked ebay again and look and behold, there were a few reasonable buy-it-now options by a commercial seller from switzerland. i used to buy from them in the past and was never disappointed. no change with this order.

"sonic excess in its purest form" was released in 2001 by spitfire records. a record label completely unknown to me. a little research unearthed the information that the label isn't active anymore these days and that they released mostly liscenced stuff for the north american or brazilian market. i believe this crowbar album was one of their genuine releases. anyway, they never did a vinyl version back then and so back on black handled the job fourteen years after its initial release.

the presentation by back on black is very nice as usual with this british, re-issue specialised label. sturdy gatefold sleeve, black dust sleeve and heavyweight coloured vinyl. love the band picture on the inside of the gatefold. what a bunch of handsome dudes, right? these guys have class standing around half-naked and looking real happy. hilarious. the album is fantastic musically. i love "repulsive in its splendid beauty" in particular. 500 copies on clear blue vinyl. back on black. 2015.

crowbar - equilibrium

i am always there to open my wallet when there is another crowbar re-issue coming my way. when such thing happens, i don't hestitate anymore. i made this mistake with the back on black re-issue of "sonic excess in its purest form" and am now dependent on second market copies coming around. so when i saw a re-press of "equilibrium" appearing in the high roller records newsletter it was obvious what i was going to do. this version right here is technically speaking a first press.

the italian label night of the vinyl dead, which is famous for their quality re-issues of metal albums that never got the vinyl treatment in the first place, is responsible for this nice platter. finally. the record is already seventeen years old but old crowbar stuff never fails to deliver. actually all crowbar stuff never fails to deliver. "equilibrium" is packed with that typical kind of sludgy, doomy and groove-laden metal which initially makes one think of no other band but crowbar. check out "glass of liquid pain" and the brilliant "down into the rotting earth" to get an impression.

of what i have heard and read about "equilibrium", the general opinion on this album is that it is probably one of the weakest crowbar albums. i really can't go conform with it. apart of the admittedly super bad artwork - i just can't stop thinking how absolutely dull the front picture is and the art on the insert looks as random as can be - this album is a scorcher. even the cover song of gary wright at the end is great. sturdy cover sleeve and insert with a subtle coloured vinyl. black vinyl with bird-shit splatter. mine is #314 out of 333 copies. night of the vinyl dead records. 2017.

crowbar - the serpent only lies

new crowbar tunes are always welcomed from my side. may it be some re-press or a new record of these louisiana based sludge lords. something like two months ago i read about the announcement of the band's eleventh full length recording "the serpent only lies". pre-order information was pretty scarce and so i stumbled upon a pre-order option at nuclear blast for a clear green version. as i didn't mean to sleep on this, i placed my order immediately.

in the coming weeks more options popped up. a clear red version from emp and a gold version from napalm records. i wasn't that overwhelmed by the colour options but i was ok with clear green, as i thought it would be the least boring colour-way of the lot. a little more time went by and at one of my regular searchs in the nuclear blast new vinyl section, i came across a clear version exclusive to the shop. now clear vinyl isn't my favourite as well but definitely the coolest among them all. so i hit up nb asking them to alter the order and here we are.

crowbar is a phenomenon to me. this band managed to stay true to their sound for over a quarter of a century and still their stuff doesn't bore me. i have this problem with heaven shall burn for example. this band is repeating itself with every album by now and i don't feel the desire to get their new releases anymore. not so with crowbar. basically they repeat theirselves as well but i enjoy it. just listen to the killer title song, a masterpiece.

for the last two records, "sever the wicked hand" and "symmetry in black", e-one entertainment was teaming up with century media records for an european vinyl version. this time e-one joined forces with steamhammer records, a division of spv. steamhammer released "the serpent only lies" in a gatefold sleeve with printed dust sleeve and a cd of the whole album. as i already said, i have the clear vinyl version of 180gr quality and limited to 150 copies. e-one. steamhammer. 2016.

crowbar - lifesblood for the downtrodden

crowbar is one of my favourite recently discovered bands. i have three records of theirs in my possession and am always on the look-out for more of their vinyl releases. one of them was "lifesblood for the downtrodden". in my first crowbar post about "odd fellows rest" i told the story of actually holding a copy of "lifesblood..." in my hands once at burnout store, hamburg. since then, i came across other copies several times but never pulled the trigger immediately and when i came back to finally get it, it was already gone.

when i pre-ordered the re-issue of gojira's "terra incognita" album and saw a nice priced copy of "lifesblood for the downtrodden" in stock at high roller records, i knew the time had come to cross this one off of the list eventually. so far i know of no weak crowbar record and this one will not change my mind about it. "lifesblood..." is an angry, sludgy bastard of metal, doom and hardcore and simply that good - alone that last song is musical perfection.

back in 2005 this album was released via candlelight records. that british metal label, founded by extreme noise terror bass player lee barrett, joined forces with back on black records and liscenced the vinyl rights to the latter. back then it was released on black double vinyl only. it took back on black nine years to repress it on coloured vinyl. just in time to the release of the, at the time, new album "symmetry in black". very industrious.

the presentation by back on black is very nice. a gatefold sleeve to house the two 180gr transparent red vinyl records with all lyrics and great artwork, plus the black dust sleeves round out this overall good looking combination of cardboard and plastic. crowbar has eleven full lengths and i hope more will get re-pressed. about the new one, "the serpent only lies", i will write soon. 500 copies made of this great album on red vinyl. back on black. 2005/2014.

crowbar - symmetry in black

it's not too long ago that i discovered crowbar for myself. i bought 'odd fellows rest' on a whim and couldn't get enough of it. their sludgy, blusy and muddy style of metal really appeals to me and i find myself on a huge crowbar kick. after i bought two early records - the self-titled sophomore release followed recently - i searched sources to obtain a coloured copy of their most recent work, called 'symmetry in black'.

i even remembered when pre-orders for this record went live back in 2014 and i had a quick thought of getting a copy because i liked windsteins side-project kingdom of sorrow a lot. for now, of course i was way too late to the party to simply buy a new copy of one of the limited runs made by century media for europe and by e1 records for north america. so as usually i checked for discogs.

there were three colours pressed for the european edition and one for the american. i said to myself not to be picky about them, as it most likely would prove hard enough to get one at all for a reasonable price. when i checked the options i was surprised to find one which was quite affordable and at least ten bucks cheaper than the rest. to add to the astonishment it was a white copy out of 100 - you have to know that there is a gold one out of 300 copies, which seems to be more likely to appear for this rate.

astonished or not, the only sensible reaction to such an offer was to buy it straight away and obviously this was what i did. i didn't have the chance to give the record proper spins by now but judging it by the few times i listened to it, i can only say this bad boy was worth every penny i gave in exchange for it. in comparison with the older records i know from them, it appears that crowbar didn't change their modus operandi pretty much and still managed to keep up the high amount of quality. great record through and through. the 180gr white vinyl matches the crisp and clean artwork perfectly. century media. 2014.

crowbar - s/t

after i bought the 'odd fellows rest' lp from crowbar at the beginning of the month, i was already planning to get what else was available on vinyl from this new orleans based sludge band. i knew of the other two back on black re-presses of 'lifesblood for the downtrodden' and 'sonic excess in its purest form'. therefore i was checking some offers on discogs. when i logged in i stumbled upon the 'recommendations' feed.

there i saw yet another crowbar vinyl release on coloured vinyl. it was the second and self-titled record from 1993, re-pressed by e-one music last year. the colour-way was a lovely yellow/orange swirl pattern. it's the type they usually call 'starburst'. my latest copy of high on fire's 'luminiferous' was pressed on the same pattern, only with more colours in the mix. anyway, i assumed this would be the limited colour of this pressing with more copies on black vinyl. when i dug a little deeper i came to the conclusion that the whole pressing came on this colour-way.

good news, this would spare me a lot of trouble trying to chase a limited colour-way, that went unnoticed by me in the first place. i checked the obvious sources and found a good offer on the bay. it was a swiss seller from whom i bought a lot of cd's back in the day through the amazon market place. the only little thrill here was that the item wasn't described as coloured vinyl, but in the end all was well. the album itself is great, it breathes the nineties. rightfully called their break-trough album. e-one music. 2015.

crowbar - odd fellows rest

i am not familiar with crowbar. i only know kirk windstein's side project kingdom of sorrow together with jamey jasta of hatebreed fame. in hindsight this band already gave me a fair idea of what crowbar might sound like. anyway, i listened to 'lifesblood for the downtrodden' at burnout record store when it was re-pressed by back on black records two years back but it wasn't the right time for me and crowbar.

lately i was visiting blitz record store in kiel quite regularly. mostly not because my girl and i were record shopping but as a welcomed side-effect. blitz records had the latest crowbar re-pressings by back on black in stock. i found the 'odd fellows rest' cover art of the 1998 album cool in a way and so listened to it. now i finally understood the band and thought man, that shit is good. i bought the sealed record and went home happily.

back home i wanted to throw the platter on my turntable, removed the seal and was shattered. record one had some processing error. a fingernail wide spot of the surface was damaged or not sealed properly, it couldn't be played. ah fuck, kiel isn't quite around the corner. it's still a fifty minutes drive, nothing i'd do just to return a damaged record.

fortunately i had to get back to town three weeks after that purchase. so last weekend i returned the damaged one and got a working replacement instead. finally i can drop the needle on it and it's a damn strong record. crowbar's bluesy sludge/doom hardcore really hits the nail on the head. it's the right mix of melancholy and steamrolling heaviness. check my favourite song of the album 'december's spawn'. love the whole layout, artwork, vinyl colour - all crisp and clean. more of it! 500 copies made. back on black. 2015.