### Svart Crown: Profane

#### 14/09/13 || The Duff

I became acquainted with this French ensemble because they were touring with Ulcerate some year or so ago, and in checking out their 2010 effort “Witnessing the Fall”, I discovered that they very much fit the bill – Svart Crown play black/death metal in the DsO, Incantation, Immolation and Gorguts lineage, and are often very good at it if only bordering on the occasional derivative.

Three years on, and we have their new album, getting far more exposure it would seem than their debut and even their sophomore, the latter having been a definite highlight of 2010. We find in “Profane” an unworthy follow-up filled with much the same style of music, perhaps more atmospheric, more ambitiously arranged, but generally the riffs less memorable, less dingy, less ferocious.

Instead we have a band that has matured, layering its music more knowledgeably and with more intent than on this record’s immediate predecessor, but I feel it is in Svart Crown’s attempt to distance themselves from their very clear influences of the past while preserving the essence of “Witnessing the Fall” that makes “Profane” fall short – simply put, they are not gifted enough to branch out into something completely innovative, resulting in something that is scrabbling some (and significantly heavier on the Immolation worship, I might add).

The musicianship is top notch, the production is nigh identical to what we had with “Witnessing the Fall” (possibly less mids, and a touch of a fuller sound), with angular riffs cutting through the fuzz very sharply, very angrily. Helas, the vitriol of the past record is foregone for a slower, trawling beast that sacrifices the to-the-throat attack for seedier, less engaging music.

They do not have the compositional greatness of Deathspell, and alternating between fast-paced, slow-paced and chug when the riffs are not all too striking is hardly enough to warrant repeated listens; it is a shame, because the album is hardly a mess nor a failure, the band operates with purpose, “Profane” is simply an uninteresting album, the fifth record in an Omnium Gatherum discography, as it were.

- Information
- Released: 2013
- Label: Listenable Records
- Website: www.svartcrown.net
- Band
- Clément “Klem” Flandrois: guitars
- Ludovic Veyssière: bass
- JB Le Bail: vocals, guitars
- N. Muller: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Manifestatio Symptoms
- 02. Genesis Architect
- 03. Intern. Virus. Human
- 04. In Utero: A Place of Hatred and Threat
- 05. Until the Last Breath
- 06. Profane
- 07. The Therapy of Flesh
- 08. Venomous Ritual
- 09. Ascetic Purification
- 10. Revelation: Down Here Stillborn