THE CROWN - Crown Of Thorns
October 22, 2024, a month ago
(Metal Blade)
The Crown are one of those bands where you can either split hairs and dissect each album and talk about them as if they're really quite different, or you can put on the blindfold, crack a beer, put it all on random and have no idea what record what song is coming from, and enjoy it all.
I tend toward the latter, the band—especially as the long years go forth—really building a consistent catalogue of goods that never disappoint. Enter Crown Of Thorns, the album title itself a throwback to the band's earlier moniker, the cover stark and black and white and crusty, opener “I Hunt With The Devil” blasting and grinding and getting a bit atmospheric, but mainly just balls-to-the-wall thrashing speed/death, while “Churchburner” gallops and chugs with remarkable determination.
These guys got life in them, even here 100 albums in (fine, twelfth, fourteenth if we're counting those Crown Of Thorns records that I kinda forgot about), tracks like “Martyrian” absolute hellthrash earworms (seriously, this song!), and “Howling At The Warfield”, I mean, this song, this is why I love metal so much and will until the day I die.
So, The Crown are doing their The Crown thing here, seemingly with a bit of fire under their arse for some reason, but, eh, this band's always got a fire under their arse, always fighting the good fight, heads down, thrash/deathing to the finish line in the deathrace 2000, 2015, 2024, and beyond.
