In one of the many iconic scenes from the classic film This Is Spinal Tap, the band contemplates the all-black cover of their new album, answering the question "How much more black could this be?" with "None more black." Well, clearly they didn't hear Crobot's Obsidian.
The fifth studio effort from the "Low Life" rockers brings plenty of big riffs and howling vocals, along with an album title that proves Spinal Tap wrong.
"It's amazing how further and further we go into our career and we get more and more related to Spinal Tap," frontman Brandon Yeagley laughs to ABC Audio. "We love it, we are that kind of band, certainly at heart."
While they weren't thinking of Spinal Tap when they were recording Obsidian, Yeagley feels that the record does show more of Crobot's personality, musically and otherwise, than past albums did, in part because they produced it themselves.
"I think this record is just us being ourselves, fully and completely, without any kind of thought process as to, 'Is this too heavy?' or 'Is this too tongue-in-cheek?' and things like that," Yeagley says. "We really were just ourselves, and we made the album that we wanted to make."
That included diving into more grunge references, such as Soundgarden and Alice in Chains.
"This one's got a much more, like, chainsaw, buzzier tone to it," says guitarist Chris Bishop.
Obsidian is out now, arriving on a Friday the 13th, which Bishop shares was a purposeful decision.
"When we saw that there was a Friday the 13th, we were like, 'Well, we gotta do that!'" Bishop says. "It's too good to not do that."
Crobot launches a U.S. tour in support of Obsidian Friday in Greenville, South Carolina.