Arguably the best 4 minutes in 2010 for me were when I watched Crowbar at the Attak in Enschede on their first proper Europe tour for some years. After I heard the first two notes of “My everlasting dose” I got totally lost in the music and sang along to every single sorrowful word that came out of Kirk’s mouth. Now there is a new Crowbar album – Severe The Wicked Hand – and it perfectly delivers what you’d expect of a Crowbar record. But some of the lyrics are just over the top in my opinion.
So let’s keep this rather short: if you liked Crowbar before, you will like the new album as well. If you haven’t heard them before, this album would be just as a good record to start like Sonic Excess In Its Purest Form for example . Although I can hardly imagine that there are people interested in heavy music that haven’t heard of Crowbar. And if you never dug em, you probably never will. All the typical Crowbar contents are there: the riffs, the voice, the heaviness, the perfect production. So nothing to go wrong so far.
But like mentioned above, some of the lyrics are just too much. I mean Kirk always used Christian/religious metaphors in his lyrics. But on Severe The Wicked Hand there are just way too much of them. And what kinda upsets me is that often there aren’t just metaphors but pure glorifications of god. Some examples?
“I’m not alone – in times of sorrow / thru grace from god – I’ll see tomorrow” (from Let Me Mourn)
“I’m all alone – fighting to live / It’s taken my all – please god take my hand” (from Cleanse Me, Heal Me)
“The saviour protects us in all we do” (from Protectors Of The Shrine)
And these are just the super obvious examples, there are way more. Kirk’s thankslist starts with, guess who, GOD, what else. Don’t get me wrong: if the irrational believe in some superior power helps someone to deal with his/her life, to stay sober, to face the fucking day it’s totally fine with me. But I don’t want to feel like being in a Bible-class when I listen to a Crowbar record. It’s just too cheesy most of the time. I mean if believing in a god helps Kirk in his struggle against his alcoholism, please go on, but I think there’d be ways to write about that without preaching.
So bottom line is: great music, strange lyrics. Decide for yourself.
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