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The Crown: Doomsday king
27/01/11 || The Duff
Before their 2004 farewell release “Possessed 13”, The Crown opened their career with two quality thrash efforts followed by a death-thrash masterpiece, and between this and the subsequent melodeath/thrash platter of kickass (still quite a checkered album) lost their long-time vocalist Johan Lindstrand only to replace him with ex-At the Gates vocalist Tomas Lindberg to the outcries of fans (hence the re-release with re-instated Johan Lindstrand several years later). Well, you can’t please everyone, proven by a backlash to the re-release (are… are you serious?), hence why new vocalist Johann sounds like a mix of the two. So really nothing different than their past incarnation line-up/sound wise six years on; how’s the tunes?
Reviews have been speaking very highly of “Doomsday King”, which makes me breathe a sigh of relief because I genuinely love this band and hope my opinion is one of few, but to me this new effort is a disappointment. The album is like a condensed version of the entire The Black Dahlia Murder catalogue (woah Nelly, look out!); I really dig TBDM, but to have a triplet riff in every single composition save the most obvious of doom/slow-paced cuts makes this tiresomely repetitious. Thankfully, despite plagiarism that goes beyond the tongue in cheek nature of “Kill ‘Em All” from “Possessed 13”, The Crown are seasoned veterans and retain the passion and energy of the scene in all but one of the ten tracks to have made the final release, the songs being overall memorable and of quality.
The recipe for each song is a catchy chorus combined with some tight if only jumbled riffing – what appears the result of jam sessions for the love of metal and perhaps a longing for a time that once was, nine months (roughly the time since their reunion) too short a time for the tracks to have aged fully. Musically, the compositions are of a very live feel, the musicianship very strong special mention going to the lead playing, the majority of cuts siding more with their thrashier dispositions and unfortunately less those catchy and melodic. Aside from the repetitive nature of the material, we’re seeing an invigorated, tight-knit ensemble as we’d expect from such a long-established outfit.
In conclusion, their exploring no fresh ground combined with a quite sloppy production (at their own hands, I might add) leaves me dispirited for one of my favourite thrash outfits; I think they should have used some of the bonus material on the special edition’s accompanying disc to break apart an album quite rampant with monotony. When they do attempt to diversify (dooming it down some), the results are half-hearted, leaving “Doomsday King” one of the most disappointing efforts of the year but with signs of promise for the band to take back its legacy.
- Information
- Released: 2010
- Label: Century Media
- Website: The Crown MySpace
- Band
- Jonas Stalhammer: vocals
- Marko Tervonen: guitars
- Marcus Sunesson: guitars
- Magnus Olsfelt: bass
- Janne Saarenpää: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Doomsday king
- 02. Angel of death 1839
- 03. Age of iron
- 04. The tempter and the bible black
- 05. Soul slasher
- 06. Blood O.D.
- 07. Through the eyes of oblivion
- 08. Desolation domain
- 09. From the ashes I shall return
- 10. He who rises in might – from darkness to light
