Crowbar

Crowbar stands as a foundational force in New Orleans heavy metal, merging Black Sabbath’s monumental weight, Pantera’s aggressive riffing, and Metallica’s elaborate structural turns. With Eyehategod, Soilent Green, Acid Bath, and Down, the band helped define the city’s sludge metal sound throughout the 1990s. Their 1993 self-titled second album brought wider attention, after which Crowbar sustained a central role across three decades by delivering dense, unyielding statements such as Odd Fellows Rest (1998), Equilibrium (2000), Sever the Wicked Hand (2011), and Zero and Below (2022) at the intersection of sludge, stoner, and doom.

The group took shape in the late ’80s with vocalist/guitarist Kirk Windstein, guitarist Matt Thomas, bassist Todd Strange, and drummer Craig Nunemacher. Originally operating as the Slugs, their grinding, deliberate heaviness prompted comparisons to Pantera, the Melvins, and Tad both in delivery and tone. After issuing Obedience Thru Suffering in 1991, they moved to Pavement Music for the self-titled follow-up, produced by Pantera’s Phil Anselmo. The record yielded the singles “All I Had (I Gave)” and “Existence Is Punishment,” both featured on MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball and in Beavis & Butthead. Following Time Heals Nothing in 1995, Nunemacher exited and was succeeded by Jimmy Bower, Eyehategod’s rhythm guitarist. Bower also drummed in Down, the side project formed by Anselmo and Corrosion of Conformity’s Pepper Keenan that included Windstein and Strange. After Thomas departed, former Acid Bath guitarist Sammy Pierre Duet joined for 1996’s Broken Glass. Bower stepped away after Odd Fellows Rest to concentrate on Eyehategod and was replaced by Sid Montz for Equilibrium in 2000. That arrangement proved brief; Nunemacher returned later that year once Strange retired, with Jeff Okoneski assuming bass duties and appearing first on the 2001 release Sonic Excess in Its Purest Form.

Further changes saw Duet, drummer Tony Costanza, and Okoneski depart in favor of guitarist Steve Gibb, drummer Tommy Buckley, and bassist Pat Bruders. Life’s Blood for the Downtrodden appeared in 2005, dedicated to Pantera and Damageplan guitarist Dimebag Darrell, who died shortly after the band completed recording. The ferocious Sever the Wicked Hand followed in 2011, then the sludgy Symmetry in Black three years later. Their eleventh studio album, The Serpent Only Lies, surfaced in 2016. Windstein released his debut solo album, Dream in Motion, in 2020. Crowbar’s twelfth full-length, Zero and Below, arrived in 2022 on MNRK Heavy (formerly eOne Music), presenting ten tracks of melodic doom highlighted by the muscular single “Chemical Godz.”