Band:	Black Crown Initiate
Album:	The Wreckage Of Stars
Style:	Progressive death metal
Release date:	September 30, 2014
Guest review by:	WayTooManyCDs

01. The Great Mistake
02. The Fractured One
03. The Malignant
04. This Human Lie Manifest
05. Withering Waves
06. To The Eye That Leads You
07. The Wreckage Of Stars
08. Shape's Collapse
09. Purge
10. Linear

Perhaps I have heard too much. I have listened to many forms of progressive metal over the years and been stunned by a fair amount of it, I can easily say that Black Crown Initiate has an acoustic sound that is just different enough to be unique to them and that it is one of the highlights of their music. I can also say that their choruses are enjoyable and entirely worth hearing. So where does this album fall short? Djent. Bloody djent.

I have heard exactly one band that utilizes the djent style of guitar playing that I enjoy, Earthside with A Dream In Static, and I would count that album as one of the best albums I have ever heard. Then there is every other band. If there is one thing I've learned about the direction metal is heading it is that djent is the easiest style to screw up. "Lots of random loud noises = good technical music, right?" No, no it really doesn't. Take Calculating Infinity by The Dillinger Escape Plan, it sounds like complete chaos the first time you hear it but further listens prove that it is actually a perfectly honed controlled chaos. Djent gives you the illusion that something incredibly mindblowing is going on but further listens only make you more aware of how much you wish they would just stop.

The real tragedy here is that The Wreckage of Stars has so many good elements. "The Human Lie Manifest", the acoustic breakdown and chorus in "Withering Waves", the opening and the chorus of the title track; but these brief moments of amazing artistry are overshadowed by the really, really obnoxious moments. I have never heard a band with so many clearly awesome ideas that chooses to legitimately punish you by hiding them in the midst of unlistenable dreck. At least most djent bands have the common courtesy of sucking outright, Black Crown Initiate lures you in with free candy and then bludgeons you over the head with a wrench.

Look, I know I'm going to get hate here, but lets put this all in context. Imagine if a death metal band decided that they were going to have an alternating blast beat for 95% of their album. Sure, at first it will sound novel, maybe they even have some great technical musicianship going on over top of it, but after five minutes you're just going to want it to stop. The novelty is lost, can you please just let me listen to your music without assaulting me with this headache-inducing sound in the background the entire time? This is djent in a nutshell for me, a sound that can absolutely be used to great effect when used sparingly but that has no reason to carry on over the course of an entire album. You're just distracting everyone from the other cool ideas you're trying to get across.

= In Short = I really want to like Black Crown Initiate, they have the potential to be a big deal, but they have bogged themselves down in the worst musical swamp there is. As much as you may find yourself enthralled with the acoustic interludes, there is just too much filler and too many directionless breakdowns to be worth the effort. Every djent band thinks they're going to be the ones to break the mold, they'll be the ones to put the figurative glass slipper on the genre and turn it from a housemaid into a princess, but what they fail to realize is that this isn't Cinderella they're working with, this is a two ton gorilla with bad breath and toe fungus that never shuts up. The moment Black Crown Initiate stops relying on the gimmick is the moment they will produce one of the best metal albums of all time. Quote me on that...but until that happens there are brighter stars in the sky.