IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T BANGED YOUR HEAD YET TODAY

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Dec 072011
 

I discovered a French band called Svart Crown more than a year ago when I reviewed their second album, Witnessing the Fall. I compared them to a joint venture between Immortal and Immolation. Since then, the band signed with Listenable Records, which put the album into wider distribution. It’s still a damned strong listen.

This morning I saw that the band have released an official video for “Into A Demential Sea”, one of the songs from Witnessing the Fall. To crib from my review (since I’m too fucking lazy to come up with any new phraseology), it’s “almost experimental in its combination of raging guitars, complex drumming, and sharp rhythm breaks that cause the song to trudge with death-doom chord progressions.”

But more importantly, it will trigger the old headbang reflex, which is a reflex that needs to be triggered often, so that you don’t get fixed-neck syndrome, which is a precursor to tight-sphincter complex and stick-up-the-ass disease.

And in other welcome news, an Ulcerate-Svart Crown European tour has been announced for February 2012. I say “welcome” because I’m trying to be happy for our European readers. I myself do not find this news welcome, because, since I can’t go to any of these shows, the news simply makes me jealous and slightly miserable because of my loss. I’m going to console myself by watching this video again. It’s after the big goddamn tour poster which immediately follows the jump. I hope all you Euro motherfuckers are happy. Continue reading »

DEATH FUCKING METAL FOR YOUR WEDNESDAY

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  6 Responses »
Oct 122011
 


As I did my daily perusing on the interhole last night, two new videos caught my bloodshot eyes. They made me gnash my teeth and scowl. They made me want to bust up shit, but since I owned all the nearby shit and was too lazy to go next door and bust up my neighbor’s shit, I refrained. They made me want to drink blood and dine on fresh fetuses, but all I could find was a beer and a chicken breast. However, I scowled and growled while I ate and drank, because it is death fucking metal and it is black as rotten teeth.

Only five days ago we wrote about Scion A/V releasing a free EP of Immolation songs called Providence. In a bomb-burst of enthusiasm, I called it one of the best death metal releases of the year. I picked my favorite track from the EP to stream with that post, “Illumination”. In a testament to the wisdom of clean living and human sacrifice, I was rewarded last night by the release of an official video for that self-same track, financed by Scion A/V. I hope Scion A/V gets at least one new car sale out of this. I don’t know why they would, but they fucken deserve it. And you deserve to download the EP, which you can do HERE.

The other video is a French band called Svart Crown playing two songs at the Evening of Metal Festival at the Salle Aragon in Saint Dizier, France on October 8. I discovered this band almost exactly one year ago when I reviewed their second album, Witnessing the Fall. Coincidentally, I compared them to a joint venture between Immortal and . . . Immolation. I still fucking love that album, and finally, through this video, I now get to see Svart Crown put a skull-creasing beatdown on a live audience. Vidz after the jump. Death fucking metal. Fuck yeah, as they say in French. Continue reading »

SVART CROWN

 Album Reviews  4 Responses »
Oct 202010
 

“Svart” is the Norwegian and Swedish word for black. Svart Crown is the name of a black/death-metal band from France. Formed in 2005 by guitarist/vocalist J.B Le Bail, the band released a debut album called Ages of Decay in early 2008. They’ve now completed their second album, which is scheduled for release by Listenable Records on November 1. It’s called Witnessing the Fall, and we took advantage of the chance to hear it before the official release.

Witnessing the Fall is, above all else, an extreme musical tribute to the wonders of the electric guitar. Le Bail and Clément Flandrois exploit that instrument for all its worth, extracting from its inert mechanical potential a wide array of energized sonic weaponry. Layering the tracks with a multitude of picking and riffing styles, they splash the musical canvass with a pastiche of swirling, dark colors and shifting images of disturbing power. Listening to what they’ve accomplished is a completely engrossing experience.

As a matter of genre classification, the album is a mixture of black- and death metal stylings — like a joint venture between Immortal and Immolation — but with black metal as the dominant partner. However, rather than persistently using cascading waves of tremolo picking and fused blast-beats to create cold atmospherics, Svart Crown more often than not rampages like an unpredictable, marauding beast.  (more after the jump, including a song to hear . . .) Continue reading »

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