Hailing from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Crobot made a name for themselves early on, with the debut single from their 2013 self-titled EP (produced by Machine, famed for work with Clutch & Lamb of God) cracking the Billboard Mainstream Rock Chart’s top twenty. From there, the band consolidated their success by touring relentlessly, sharing the stage with the likes of Clutch, The Sword and Truckfighters before signing to the esteemed Mascot Records in the wake of third album welcome to fat city. Now back with a brand-new effort, the band are set to reach even greater heights with the awesome motherbrain, an album that makes an instant impact thanks to the stunning artwork that adorns its cover.
In a typically self-mythologizing entry, Crobot unleash a Zeppelin-esque wail on the apty-titled burn, as gargantuan riffs are pitted against a molasses-thick rhythm that eschews speed in favour of sheer weight. It is one hell of an opening, the band displaying both confidence and power as they swing into a finale that adds blues harmonica to the mix before swaggering off to the bar in search of whatever gut-rot whiskey is cheapest and most plentiful in supply. With a tough, bluesy sound, Keep me down pairs a hook-laden melody that steadfastly refuses to budge with huge, grinding guitars to grand effect. Nothing, however, prepares the listener for the explosive rush of drown, an epic, track that recalls Soundgarden and Alice in Chains with its minor-key harmonies, throbbing bass and dark riffing. An early album highlight, drown is a powerful track offering up some of the album’s most explosive and experimental guitarwork. Emerging from the darkness, the taut groove of Low life instructs the listener to “turn off your television” before unleashing a chorus that has considerable pop finesse for all the crunchy riffing the band deploy. The effortless swagger of Alpha Dawg sees the band crafting a track that sits somewhere between Monster Magnet, Velvet Revolver and Clutch in the chain of inspiration, the stabbing riffs sending the blood pumping through the veins with thrombosis-threatening results. The first half of the album hits a peak with the churning, demonic Stoning the devil, which once again suggests a strong Soundgarden influence on the band, the track coming off as a natural successor to Superunknown with additional hints of the blues thrown in for good measure.
Despite a title that sits high in the firmament of cliched rock names, Gasoline does not initially detonate as you might imagine, the band deploying acoustic guitars and a sense of space before finally unleashing the long-expected riff-fest at the end of the first verse. Another track that takes unexpected sonic detours, gasoline builds to a satisfyingly apocalyptic finale in time for the mid-paced destroyer to blot out the sky with its Sabbath-esque riffs and a powerful vocal performance that sits comfortably between Cornell and Staley. The punishing blackout, like low life, deftly pairs gruelling basslines and battering ram riffs with a sense of melody that is all but impossible to shift. A track that pretty much epitomises the band’s self-professed genre of dirty, groove rock, after life is built around a greasy bassline and given life by yet another blistering vocal performance from Brandon Yeagley, whose performance excels throughout the record. The album comes to its conclusion with the psychedelic swirl of the hive, an airy, dynamic track that explodes vividly to life with a chorus that is as hook-laden as it is heavy. It’s almost as if the band decided to finish with a track that represented the album in microcosm, incorporating aspects of blues, metal and alternative rock into one remarkable finale that houses pretty much all that is best in Crobot’s epic sound.
When they first emerged on the scene, Crobot appeared to have a fine future ahead of them, following in the footsteps of Clutch without straying too far from the blues-infused hard rock template. However, on motherbrain, the band have gone above and beyond, weaving myriad influences into an album that draws on the latter-day psychedelia of Soundgarden and Screaming Trees, the blues infused hard rock with which they made their name and even the sonic experimentation of Rage Against The Machine and Queens Of The Stone Age. Reference points abound, to be sure, but here, on motherbrain, Crobot most convincingly sound like themselves as they weave their influences into new, unique tapestries and the result is a bold, powerful work that stands as their finest, most complete effort to date. 9
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