Band:	The Crown
Album:	Crown Of Thorns
Style:	Death metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	October 11, 2024
A review by:	AndyMetalFreak

01. I Hunt With The Devil
02. Churchburner
03. Martyrian
04. Gone To Hell
05. Howling At The Warfield
06. The Night Is Now
07. God-King
08. The Agitator
09. Where Nightmares Belong
10. The Storm That Comes
11. Eternally Infernal [bonus]
12. No Fuel For God [bonus]
13. Mind Collapse [bonus]

Going back to their roots, The Crown form a Crown Of Thorns.

The Crown are one of the most prolific metal bands to emerge from Sweden since their formation in 1998, having released 10 full-length albums, including latest offering Crown Of Thorns. This album's name is interesting in how it harks back to the band's past life as Crown Of Thorns, a name they performed under from 1990 to 1998 before having to change due to an American band already using the same name. The Crown is known for a sound that merges OSDM and traditional thrash (a style closely linked to that of Possessed and Sepultura), but also for the strong influences from classic melodeath. As well as their music style, they often feature a diverse range of themes and lyrical content, from anti-Christianism and diabolical blasphemy, to rebellion, revolution, death, and war. The Crown also have a history of consistent line-up rotations, even including a brief hiatus between 2004 and 2009; Jonas Stålhammar (God Macabre) revived the band, taking over from former vocalist Lindstrand, before Lindstrand returned a year later, remaining frontman ever since. 

The Crown have quite a consistent discography to date, and the ferociously energetic and strikingly melodic previous album Royal Destroyer was certainly no exception. Three years down the line, The Crown are back in blasphemous form, as the album name, track titles, and cover art suggest. "I Hunt With The Devil" starts off in a typical manner for the band, with Lindstrand's signature demonic semi-harsh growls leading the dark, ferocious death thrash instrumentation. This is a fast, catchy, and energetic opener, but not nearly as much so as "Churchburner", during which the tempo rises even higher. This no-nonsense approach persists throughout the album; guitars alternate between heavy melodeath-leaning and lightning-paced thrash riffs, along with fiery lead breaks, accompanied by relentless rhythm driven by rampant blast beats, whie the menacing presence of vocalist Lindstrand continues to work his beastly magic.

The whole album flows rather smoothly; the quality isn't groundbreaking but remains consistent, and every song is relatively short, but at the very least enjoyable. "Gone To Hell" is one of the highlights, particularly for its evil devilish whispers, melodic riffs, and catchy headbangable rhythm. "Howling At The Warfield" contains a memorable classic-sounding solo, and a rare slower tempo section; afterwards, there's a stylistic drum solo at the beginning of "The Night Is Now". There are a few moments worth taking note of, but still nothing for me that makes this album stand out compared with the band's previous albums, until you reach the closing track "The Storm That Comes" that is. This song is the most varied track structurally, and by far the longest track at 7 minutes. Not only does it deliver the full ferocious force of death thrash, but it features slow atmospheric sections, as well as contain some of the album's most memorable riff melodies and solos.

Overall, Crown Of Thorns doesn't quite sit at the top when ranking the band's releases to date, but it's The Crown doing what they do best, offering quality death thrash the way they've been doing so for over 25 years. Johan Lindstrand's vocals are as aggressive and evil as they ever were, while guitarists Marko Tervonen and Marcus Sunesson still shred and slay with ferocious force, but for me the shining performers are that of the rhythm section in bassist Mattias Rasmussen, and above all drummer Mikael Norén. All together, the quintet form a crown worthy of honouring them the title kings of Swedish death thrash.