Crawl

“We will unite and rise again.”

With that line from the song ‘Rise’, hard rock quartet CRAWL are re-establishing their place in Canada’s heavy music scene.

‘Rise’ is the lead-off track from the quartet’s new Anticipate the Fall EP, the band’s first recording of new music since 1995’s Feed CD.

The EP finds the band with three quarters of its original lineup joined by a new vocalist and powered by renewed vigour and a new sense of purpose.

Crawl was formed in 1992 by Scott Clark and Tom Grondin. Guitarist Stuart Green joined the band soon after followed by vocalist Steve McFarlane to complete the lineup. Anthony Poto played guitar from 1995-1997.

In 2013, Scott, Tom and Stuart reformed CRAWL and were joined Michael David Wolf, formerly of Mind Mechanics, taking over vocal duties. The band wasted no time rehearsing and writing new music and started playing live in summer, 2013.

The band re-united initially to play a charity benefit in the name of Tom’s mother, Wendy. But they quickly realized they missed playing together and thought now was a good a time as any to see if they still had that creative spark to move forward. It didn’t take long to realize they did. The old material has been given new life and the new songs are true to CRAWL’s original vision of heavy melodic rock that defies categorization.

The band was not interested in being a nostalgia act. If they were going to do this, it would be to pay tribute and honour the past while moving forward.

The new EP captures that perfectly. ‘Rise’, ‘Feel’ and ‘Loaded’ are rollicking rock songs written by the new lineup that swerve, groove and pummel. ‘No Lies’ is a layered, anthemic, grunge-blues track re-worked with lyrics and melodies by Mike. The EP closes with ‘A Little Left to Kill’ a chugging gut-punch written in 1994 but never formally released.

Over the years, Crawl has recorded numerous demos and 2 full length CDs; "300 Yards of Face" featuring Stuart on guitars and "Feed" which features Anthony on guitars. From those CDs came 3 videos: ‘Storm’, ‘Dry’ and ‘Not the Way It Should Be’. The videos were produced with the help of VideoFACT grants. ‘Storm’ and ‘Dry’ each earned nominations for BEST HARD ROCK video in 1994 and 1995 respectively at the Much Music Video Awards (Canada’s version of the MTV awards).

Crawl has also played nearly 400 live shows which included 2 national tours across Canada and many mini tours across Ontario and Quebec. This helped Crawl earn a reputation as one of Canada's loudest and most energetic bands as well as one of the busier bands in the country. The tireless work resulted in some great opening spots with bands like Quicksand, Helmet, Hell Yeah, Wool and Varga among many more.

The band will spend 2014 and the foreseeable future playing more live shows and has already written new material that will be debuted this summer.

“It’s been a long time coming.” – ‘No Lies’