CROWBAR Announces Summer 2022 'The Riff Beast Tour'

New Orleans sludge masters CROWBAR will embark on the "The Riff Beast Tour" this summer. Support on the trek will come from SPIRIT ADRIFT.

The dates are as follows:

Jul. 22 - Austin, TX – Ripplefest (no SPIRIT ADRIFT)
Jul. 23 - Dallas, TX - Amplified Live (no SPIRIT ADRIFT)
Jul. 24 - Tulsa, OK - The Vanguard (no SPIRIT ADRIFT)
Jul. 26 - Springfield, MO - Outland Ballroom
Jul. 27 - St. Louis, MO - Red Flag
Jul. 28 - Racine, WI - Route 20
Jul. 29 - Minneapolis, MN - Cabooze
Jul. 30 - Chicago, IL - Cobra Lounge
Jul. 31 - Ft. Wayne, IN - Piere’s
Aug. 02 - Indianapolis, IN - Emerson Theater
Aug. 03 - Columbus, OH - King Of Cups
Aug. 04 - Rochester, NY - Montage Music Hall
Aug. 06 - Poughkeepsie, NY - The Chance Theater
Aug. 09 - Brooklyn, NY - Saint Vitus
Aug. 10 - Atlantic City, NJ - Anchor Rock Club
Aug. 11 - Reading, PA - Reverb
Aug. 12 - Huntington, WV - The Loud
Aug. 13 - Richmond, VA - The Broadberry
Aug. 14 - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506
Aug. 16 - Jacksonville, FL - Archetype
Aug. 17 - Miami, FL - Gramps
Aug. 18 - Orlando, FL - Will’s Pub
Aug. 19 - Ft. Walton Beach, FL - Downtown Music Hall
Aug. 20 - Mobile, AL - Soul Kitchen
Aug. 21 - Baton Rouge, LA - Chelsea’s Live
Aug. 23 - Athens, GA - 40 Watt
Aug. 24 - Virginia Beach, VA - Elevation 27
Aug. 26 - Albany, NY - Empire Underground
Aug. 27 - Worcester, MA - Tattoo The Earth

CROWBAR's latest album, "Zero And Below", was released on March 4 via MNRK Heavy (formerly eOne Music). Produced, mixed, and mastered by Duane Simoneaux at OCD Recording And Production in Metairie, Louisiana, the LP is reverently old school, counterbalanced by a resonant melodicism that's stunningly mature. Songs like "Chemical Godz", "Bleeding From Every Hole" and "It's Always Worth The Gain" demonstrate what CROWBAR does better than any other band: powerful, evocative, and crushingly heavy music. Celebrating a recent 30th anniversary, CROWBAR is led by one of the most beloved figures in heavy metal, riff overlord Kirk Windstein, whose menacing bellow and smooth drawl put resilient, unrepentant strength behind even the most somber odes to suffering.

CROWBAR songs are unapologetic emotional outpourings, with a bare-knuckle resolve alongside its soul-searching vulnerability, reliably delivered with crushing heaviness. "Zero And Below", which cements the band's dense catalog as exactly one dozen studio albums deep, is the most unforgivably doomy CROWBAR record since the group's landmark 1998 effort "Odd Fellows Rest".

Two years ago, Windstein told the "Does It Doom?" podcast that he was really happy with the band's then-just-completed new album. "It's really a killer record — I love it," he said. "It's got a lot of [guitar] harmonies and it's got a lot more doomy riffs. We only had one proper fast song — one of our more upbeat, hardcore-type, MOTÖRHEAD speed, I call it, type tunes; we've only got one like that. Out of all 10 tracks, besides that one tune, there's only maybe two other fast, what I would consider fast, songs on the whole record. So it's kind of a throwback but a modern, more mature touch on it."

He continued: "We're all super, super happy with the way it came out. The production's amazing, again from Duane Simoneaux. The guitar tone's amazing. The songs themselves are great; I'm really happy. It's really one of the only CROWBAR records that I'm really happy with everything — every riff, I'm happy with the tones, with the production, with the lyrics, with the way I sang; the whole nine yards. So I'm really just loving it, to be honest — I really am."

Earlier in 2020, Windstein told Full Metal Jackie's nationally syndicated radio show that he got "a lot of help" from guitarist Matt Brunson and bassist Shane Wesley during the songwriting process for CROWBAR's new album.