2013 - Independent release
Over the past few months, I've found myself using Bandcamp more and more to discover new bands. I've found some impressive music, perhaps none more so than Black Crown Initiate's 4 song release Song of the Crippled Bull. This is actually 1 21-minute long song dissected into 4 parts. They fluidly move from one song to the next and the lyrics that start the disc are also the last on the disc, which I thought was pretty clever. The influences on this thing are all over the place, going from more mellow atmospheric moments to technical death to black metal to doomy sludge and prog. The most surprising part is how cohesive the album flows with all of it's colored influences, especially for such a young band! The opening track, "Stench of the Iron Age", seamlessly moves from slow acoustic guitar and clean vocals to frenetic, blistering tech death with bellowing roars to some later almost Meshuggah-esque riffing. "Ghost She Sends" has a more doomy, almost Daylight Dies or Ghost Brigade vibe with a little Gojira spread around for good measure. "The Mountain Top" is the most chaotic of the bunch, mostly going at a frantic pace that would rival Behemoth if not for the almost melodeathy chorus, complete with clean vocals. The end of the song almost has a Anaal Nathrakh vibe going for it with the vocals hitting a crazy, raspy level with pummeling blastbeats. As I mentioned earlier, "Song of the Crippled Bull" ends things to cycle to the beginning once more with the same vocal line used, just sung a bit more triumphantly with an absolutely mesmerizing final riff. All in all, its an ambitious, refreshing listen that despite the numerous influences I've cited, is exponentially more than the sum of it's parts. This is probably the best compliment I can give them, as I cannot honestly say that of many bands around today.
At $3, you really don't have an excuse not to check this out. If all is just with the world, I don't imagine these guys staying unsigned for much longer. Highly recommended!
Black Crown Initiate
Black Crown Initiate on Bandcamp
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