Odd Fellows Rest

The cover says it all about what kind of music to expect here. Normally, I hate album art that uses photography, but this is an exception simply because of how dark, unusual, and foreboding it is. It's the heads of the band members combined into an agonized, demonic, gargoyle-like monstrosity surrounded by a field of pitch black nothing. Much like the music itself on Odd Fellow's Rest, it's imposing, forbidding, melancholic, brooding, and strangely stoic. Windstein cranks out walls of dripping sludge that crush and steamroll despite their lack of speed. Downtuned dirges play in long and despair-filled passages that have just enough chunkiness to hook people into its vortex of quicksand-thick guitars. Kirk and Todd can be relied on to deal out crushing blows, but they're in good company with Acid Bath axeman and resident satanist, Sammy Duet as well as Eyehategod's Jimmy Bower. Talk about a mighty line-up. Odd Fellow's Rest is Crowbar's signature forbidden dirges at their tightest.

There are some just gargantuan leads used on Odd Fellow's Rest to really cement the sheer gravity of the dirges on here. This is an album that is sludge, but also has trappings of groove metal for creating its many chunky, rolling riffs that make songs like the iconic "Planets Collide". One thing that adds power to this album's funeral march is the vocals of Kirk Windstein. He shouts in his usual agonized and brooding way, but also tries a heavy dose of melody and harmonizes with Sammy's subtle backing vocals. When he handles his cleans, it sounds like a mourner's chant. This is best shown off on "Behind the Black Horizon" where they sound chilling and strangely calm with the intense music in the background plodding in a dirge. Though Odd Fellow's Rest is a slow and deliberate affair, that doesn't mean that it's an album without variety. Faster and more fight-ready songs barrel into the listener with all the force of a wrecking ball such as the face-shattering "On Frozen Ground". The riffs are iconic no matter the speed and that lays the groundwork for an exceptional album. They make an impact that lasts, like an Apatosaurus footprint smashed into the mud. When I say that this album is slow and deliberate, I mean deliberate as in crafted to get the most mileage out of its riffing so that they suck you in and crush like a black hole of morose grooves. Odd Fellow's Rest lives, breathes, and embodies the deliberate and molasses-thick chunkiness that makes Crowbar who they are.

The use of atmosphere is solidly on point for this Crowbar album. Ethereal, moaned choir vocals, trippy guitar pedals, and droning extended notes are all used to give Odd Fellow's Rest a real feeling of gravity. It's really something you can bask in the darkness of. In spite of the crushing riffage that's as thick as molasses, it flows just as smoothly with a sway that's easy to get immersed in. The title track is the most atmospheric thing on this album, being a hallucinogenic track full of layered clean vocals and spacey guitar distortion that gives a feeling of floating through the ether. It stuck out from the rest, but ultimately it's one of my favorite trippy songs, even overpowering "Planet Caravan" with its sheer fluidity and viscosity. The more normal fare on this album uses the cleans and drones notes to add even more brooding bleakness to the music. It's got an aura like being surrounded by graves. That's probably intentional, considering this album was named after one of the biggest and most labyrinthine graveyards in New Orleans.

If you want to see Crowbar going strong and as forbidding as ever, Odd Fellow's Rest is an ideal slab of stone cold, stern doom. This is music made to deliberately go overkill on the heaviness. Crowbar gets the vocals, the riffs, the atmosphere, the mood, and the execution down with the heaviest dosage of misery and overpowering walls of sheer mass. It's songs all have strong staying power and make themselves known just from the sheer weight and presence of the guitars. Kirk gives an impassioned vocal performance that sounds pained by the world around him with Sammy Duet and Todd Strange backing him up in the guitar department. This album contains many of Crowbar's signature songs, and as a piece of music, it excels in bringing just punishing sludge. Odd Fellow's Rest is one of Crowbar's best.