Crowbar- The Serpent Only Lies (2016)

Crowbar- The Serpent Only Lies (2016)

By: Ghost Writer

The initial mammoth sized riffs of Crowbar's new record, The Serpent Only Lies, might sound like a tale told too many times by this mighty Southern band, but after a few seconds the band shows a brute display of power and a sound that refuses to be pigeonholed, a masterful down and dirty sound that these guys have managed not only to master, but to transform it into something else, something new, something exciting and something all of their own. 

Sludge is kind of like the poor man's grunge, in a way both musical movements were partially inspired directly by The Melvins, in a way both genres were had influence from both Black Sabbath and Black Flag, in order to create a slow grinding song that easily obliterates the listener, but while grunge broke big, sold a lot of records and then imploded, sludge remained there, down and dirty and away for the masses, a kind of American answer to Scandinavian Black Metal, sludge became mixed with some Southern metal and things got pretty interesting, but in the case of Crowbar, is just panful filth, the kind of stuff you will never see or hear on the radio or MTV, pure demonic sound forever vibrating, Failing While Rising might be a very adept description of Crowbar's war of sound, the downer they get, the better they sound, in no way they are attempt to reach the mainstream, their music keeps getting heavier and uglier, their riffing as impressive as ever, even playing very well their cards when it comes to dynamics featuring pulverizing drums, just check out the intro to Plasmic and Pure a more powerful song with the band at the top of their grooving powers, the band playing their brutal stuff in very clever ways, like an old snake crawling in order to slowly suffocate it victim, with vocals spewing acidic poison thru its fangs. 

I Am The Storm will surely caught more than one out of base with its fast attack, and heavy riffing, again the band playing with dynamics, bringing on a couple of new tricks in order to keep things fresh, although fresh is not exactly an adjective you would attach to Crowbar to be right, bringing to mind good old Metallica to mind, while on Surviving the Abyss the band get on amusing textural ultra-slow riffing, bringing quite interesting results and show stealing detail throughout the tune, just before unleashing the amazing title track, taking us into definitely Crowbar territory, where the band remains untouched. 

On The Serpent Only Lies, Crowbar seems to be redefining it's sound, they sound more powerful than ever, is amazing to listen how the band is able to evolve despite their apparently limited approach, but it seems that Crowbar is the type of band that refuses to be easily categorized, sludge might be the proper way to describe them, but at the same time us a title that is not able to capture all the dimensions this guys are able to put fully on painful display, songs like The Enemy Besides You or On Holy Ground are major surprises within this disc, while the albums closer As I Heal is the Crowbar working on their classic sound to make it even sound better,  The Serpent Only Lies is a brilliant piece of music, is a record that easily stands out from current metal offering, if there's something interesting coming out of NOLA these days, that's definitely Crowbar, you can't go wrong with no with this, as it kind of troubles me that I started listening to both Helmet and Crowbar nearly at the same time, while Crowbar is still growing into a big monster, Helmet appear to have simply lost their way.