Kirk Windstein
Dream In Motion
---originally published on Lambgoat---
Kirk Windstein has been a staple of the metal world for
nearly three decades. With his band
Crowbar, he helped usher the New Orleans Sludge Metal scene to prominence
alongside other seminal acts such as EyeHateGod and Soilent Green, creating one
of the most distinctively influential eras for the sub-genre. The group’s skilled songwriting combined
gigantic riffs, emotionally introspective lyrics and Windstein’s soul-wrenching
wail. The result being a bulldozer of
sound; a force so colossal it caused the animated MTV duo Beavis and Butthead
to once infamously muse, “This music is slow and fat.”
Windstein reached a wider audience as one of the founding
members of metal supergroup Down alongside the talents of fellow New Orleans
stalwarts Pepper Keenan (Corrosion Of Conformity), Jimmy Bower (EyeHateGod) and
Pantera’s Phil Anselmo. Down’s pedigree
and infectious weed-centric grooves helped bring more attention to the greater
Doom and Stoner Metal underground. By
the mid-nineties Windstein was already a legend.
While Crowbar is still active (and as powerful as ever),
Windstein has released a collection of solo material that focuses more on the
melodic, less pummeling tendencies of his writing. But fear not, seekers of the aural assault -
Kirk Windstein has not gone soft. Well,
not really…
Dream In Motion
meets somewhere in the middle of the Kirk we know and love and 40 Watt Sun’s Wider Than The Sky, albeit less
effective than either. The album’s
titular opening track and the proceeding “Hollow Dying Man” have an air of
familiarity – their blaring distorted guitars and funereal pace are certainly
reminiscent of Crowbar, but there’s a more languid finesse to the
approach. Windstein finds more room for
his howls as the chaos of his metal background relents to a more controlled
song. The mammoth chords ring out but
the riffs take a back seat to the composition.
As the album progresses, Windstein tends to trade the
distorted guitar for a chorus-effect laden clean tone. “Once Again” and “Enemy In Disguise” meld the
fine-faceted progressions of the opening numbers with this more placid
arrangement. A bed of synth underlies
“Once Again” which, with the decay of the undistorted guitar and lethargic
chord progression, brings to mind the dreary aesthetic of the aforementioned Wider Than The Sky, even more so when
the Patrick Walker-esque minimalist guitar solo sneaks in.
Building off the tone set, Dream In Motion pivots back to Windstein’s louder propensity with “
The World You Know” and “Toxic”.” While
the former ebbs and flows between a quiet verse and juiced up chorus, the
latter rolls along what could be an unused Down riff marking the albums major
shifting moment. The last four tracks on
Dream In Motion fail to live up to
the expectations set by the first six, ranging from the unnecessary and
monotonous to the bafflingly uninspired.
“The Healing” is a strangely out of place instrumental that offers
nothing special in its divergence from the rest of the album. It simply sounds
like the session ended before Windstein had the opportunity to lay down his
vocal track. “Necropolis” and “The Ugly
Truth,” while well intentioned, sound incredibly similar to each other. The overuse of a constant on-beat guitar
strum becomes borderline annoying as these two tracks plod along tediously like
one long tiring number. Finally, the
album concludes on a version of the Jethro Tull classic “Aqualung,” which would
have been better served as a single or bonus track. While Windstein does it justice, the songs
notorious jagged guitar riff is such a leap from the albums doomy bleakness
that it appears tacked on for run-time.
It’s a strange way to end after how it all began.
Bottomline: There is a lot to like about Kirk Windtsein’s first
stab at a solo album, but it is certainly not without its flaws. The first half of Dream In Motion is excellent, but the album descends into mundanity. When Windstein is at his best, as he is on
tracks like “Once Again” and “Hollow Dying Man,” we see a new side to this
Sludge-Metal pioneer that I would like to get more of.
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