Review Summary: Crowned Unholy delivers classic The Crown material but it still tends to fall down in a few pits of repetitivness and the originality points are not many.
The Crown might be one of few bands that actually had an effect to the death metal genre in Sweden, by mixing ferocious thrash with healthy modern death metal they became a very respectable extreme metal band. Some albums were not as good as the others but every album the band put out showed that they were very serious in what they were doing. They started off as an melodic death metal band under the name
Crown Of Thorns, but there was already a band with that name so The Crown became the new name. After releasing to melodic death albums from the start
The Crown took a new approach in their music, they ditched the melodies and added more speed and aggression. These death-thrashers had basically no limits in their music; everything was played in high-speed, with high accuracy, brutality and heaviness. But unfortunately the band quit playing since their economics was far from good. The interest to continue playing slowly faded and the band broke up. The vocalist
Johan Lindstrand is still involved in music though, his new band is called
One Man Army And The Undead Quartet which is also an extreme metal act. The rest of the crew joined other metal bands while others stopped working with music.
The Crown was a quality band within the death/thrash genre and they released several albums that actually stood out, both vocally and instrumentally. One of their albums grabbed my attention and that album was called
Crowned In Terror. The reason why I wanted that album was because that the former
At The Gates vocalist
Tomas Lindberg actually did vocals in that particular album. I thought that I had the right album but I thought that the vocalist still sounded awfully familiar to
Johan Lindstrand. I checked the internet for some answers and I later found out that I had
Crowned Unholy. It was an album where
Johan did the vocals instead of
Tomas, the bass had been re-recorded and the drumming was programmed. I was quite disappointed but since I love this band so much I thought I could give it a shot. This album was of course very fast and intense, extreme and very heavy. This is probably one of their albums where death and thrash was mixed to the point where it almost became perfect. But also this album had a familiar flaw to it; a certain repetitive factor is present. Most tracks are fast as hell, aggressive and merciless, the only exception would be the track
World Below which is the slowest track. Lyrically the band continues their path towards Satanism, evil and death. Here are some lyrics that were very typical to this band, lyrics are picked from the album
Crowned Unholy.
(Satanist)
Satanist - The devil's finest
A diamond - In the fear and silence
Always and ever - Nowhere and never
Unheavenly star rise up
(Death Is The Hunter)
There will be no mercy given
From my blood-stained scythe
Death is The Hunter
Johan Lindstrand is probably one of Sweden’s finest extreme metal vocalist in the metal scene. As usual, the album is packed with harsh and powerful death roars. At times the vocals get a deeper sound which makes some variety but there is just one sort of vocals here. One odd thing is that this is probably the only album where
Lindstrand uses clean vocals, in
The Speed Of Darkness you will actually experience his clean vocals. It’s nothing spectacular though, the clean vocals actually sound weird in contrast to the harsh roars. There are s*** loads of guitars in this album hands down. Intriguing, catchy and heavy thrash riffs are blend with speeded tremolo riffs from death metal. There are no signs of fatigue here; the guitars are fast, really fast. They keep up with the intense drumming with ease and every riffs is executed with speed, expertise and timing. The only thing that might backfire is the lack of creativity, most riffs sounds somewhat recycled compared to other material. But remember, this album contains more melodic moment compared to previous material. You can not call this melodic music but some riffs and solos has a nice melodic structure,
Drugged Unholy and
The Speed Of Darkness tracks would be prime examples. The bass was actually re-recorded in this album, but that doesn’t mean that the bass is audible or does any particular standouts. You will hear the bass when high tunes are played and in the intro to
Satanist. Even if the bass doesn’t standout either in sound or performance it still provides a good backup sound that feeds the guitars, creating a strong wall of sound. Truth to be told, even if the drums are programmed you would still not hear a difference between programmed drums or the real drummer.
Janne Saarenpaa is that good, he programmed the drums and this is what he has to offer: Machinegun rattling double kick bass patterns mixed with bursts of various blast beats and other types of catchy and heavy patterns. Everything goes in high speed most of the time, but there is a good pattern variety throughout the material which makes the repetitiveness to remain low.
Hell Is Here had the most death metal ingredients,
Deathrace King had the most thrash influences,
Possessed 13 was more like a innovative fusion of both. But
Crowned Unholy (or Crowned In Terror) probably has the best mould of death and thrash metal. The influences has been forged with such expertise that an experienced all-round metal head can easily point out what is death and what is thrash. This album belongs to one of
The Crown’s best but as with all the other albums this album shows signs of the past. This means that the band hasn’t used enough methods to make this album standout from the rest of the crowd. Many tracks has the same ‘’already’’ used drum patterns, the vocals and lyrics are the same and there are occasions where drum beats and riffs really interfere too much with each other. Nonetheless,
Crowned Unholy still have the classic attributes from the band, the incredible rage, aggression and energy. People who like intense extreme music and especially death/thrash must’ve listen to at least one album from
The Crown. I even dear to say that this band is quite essential for those who like or love the death/thrash genre. If you like bands like
Deathchain,
Arch Enemy,
Hatesphere or
De Lirium’s Order you should enjoy the death/thrash veterans,
The Crown.
Recommended Tracks
-- Satanist (Perfect track, catchy, intense, heavy and brutal[/i])
-- Crowned In Terror (
A very aggressive and forceful track, great opener)
-- The Speed Of Darkness (
The most melodic track, quite intriguing melodies)
-- Drugged Unholy (
A mix of everything, extremeness blended with some melodies)
4/5
