For the most part, unlike the front-loaded Vulgar Display of Power, this piece of plastic more than delivers on its’ promise of brain-thumping, brutal-riffing, yet enveloping AND interesting heavy metal all the way through. The recognizable, “radio-friendly” tracks (the term is relative, of course) still lie at the beginning of the disc, where you find catchier affairs like “Strength Beyond Strength”, “Becoming”, and “5 Minutes Alone". Unlike the previous disc, you start to notice there’s more groove to these tunes, and less regimentation. The video for "I'm Broken" got a ton of airplay which made the song the de facto single. It has a BIG riff and the band going full bore on what would turn out to be their anthem. Then the surprise at the end is “Throes of Rejection” segueing into a nice, mellow cover of Black Sabbath’s “Planet Caravan”.

Pantera finally coalesced their power-groove metal formula for this release, after some fits, starts, and admitted high points on 1990's Cowboys from Hell. "Mouth for War" kicks things off with unparalleled abandon, setting the tone - not even a trace of pretty boy yowl or grungy groan, the band constantly barks, growls, and antagonizes. Even matters of the heart are dealt with coldly (the thrash-ballad "This Love"). After a smashing start, the album tails off mightily, so I'm not convinced it's the landmark classic everyone claims it to be. But it's vital in the hard rock world.

Tone and mood wise, the band attempts to meld the anything-goes approach of the previous album with the old-style sludge of older records, with some gimmicks thrown in to maintain interest. The end result is a mixed bag which, could have been better, but more often than not, makes Odd Fellows Rest feel like a bit of a one-off. The first half of the album is clearly the most focused section, featuring shifting sludge-punk performances such as "I Feel the Burning Sun" and "Down Into the Rotting Earth". Then the record takes an odd turn on the piano dirge "To Touch the Hand of God", which is just not one of the band's better tracks, IMHO. Elsewhere, I am not sure what they are trying to accomplish covering Gary Wright's "Dream Weaver", but something about has never sat right with me. And then they follow it up with about the ugliest-on-purpose a cappella cover of "In a Gadda da Vida" I have ever heard. It just has me wondering about the general state these guys might have been in at the time of recording…. Still, compared to the other Crowbar records it's not bad, in that the majority of tracks fit in with their classic formula. It's just that on these covers, and on the "Hand of God" track, they got a little too out-of-whack.

Things take a turn for the epic…or the maudlin frame of mind…depending on how you feel about the concept of a group like Crowbar in advance. Before OFR, Crowbar albums were fairly succinct deals - roughly equal parts slow, stumbling, grinding metal, and roughly another equal part tortured, hard core punk, taken at generally faster tempos. But for this album, Windstein begins to embrace the music of his hometown a bit more, calling in Sammy Duet (former of local heroes Acid Bath) on lead guitar, and the music itself stretches out, recalling early 70's arena rock and other, dusty old obscure bands from that era. Yes, you could call it a Down-like album, but not like the first Down record (the NOLA one), but more like the second one, with spacey keyboard sections and sloppy riffs interposed with multiple tangents and changes in tempo. And lest I forget, lots of lyrical references to death and going off into space and finding one's way home and other semi-existential BS like that. None of this is great in any one particular area, but it all just builds upon itself gradually, until the title track, which is very "Jail" and "Planet Caravan" like, but more organic, somehow. It's just a bizarre, yet dementedly gentle-buzzsaw cry to the Gods, or something, I guess. Even the cover is crazy enough to warrant interest.

The first four albums for Crowbar reveal a minor, odd trend at work - every other even-numbered album seems to be more interesting than every other odd-numbered album, for some reason. This time around, Jimmy Bower from EyeHateGod and Down stepped into the drummer's seat, and guess what? Now the achy, creaky, Zeppelin-aping Down sound is in full effect, which, as it turns out, isn't that much of a change in direction from the original Crowbar sound. In many respects, it is a slightly disappointing development - though not unexpected - as Windstein and Bower had performed with Down the year before, so naturally, why not do a Crowbar record with all the same tricks they picked up from the other band? Parts of this are great to hear - the cinematic atmosphere of "Nothing", by itself, is pretty notable - but a lot of it feels very playbook-ish, especially with the Phil Anselmo vocal overdubs in the background.