Pennsylvania-based metal band Black Crown Initiate have recently put out their label debut, The Wreckage Of Stars. This album features a wide array of music, with tracks ranging from spacey ambience to downright death metal.
One of the more prominent songs on the album, “The Malignant” opens up with a metal riff being played on an acoustic guitar; the sound is extremely dissonant and atonal, the time signature moves all over the place, and quite frankly, it breeds a sense of deliberate confusion that leaves you wanting something to happen. Something does in fact happen when the song kicks in and we hear clean vocals akin to Dio and Protest The Hero. Expectations are destroyed in this song when it cuts out and opens up into a bass solo, in which the guitars play rhythm section to bassist Nick Shaw’s virtuosity. “The Malignant” quickly turns into a death metal standard complete with arpeggiated guitars, blast beats, and fast, precise, double kick drum hits.
Another heavy-hitting song is one that isn’t all that heavy. The title-track starts off with dense reverb and chorus, and continues on in this fashion until the drums come in with a rhythm so syncopated, you’d think that it was being played by Billy Rymer of The Dillinger Escape Plan. Unlike any other song, “The Wreckage” contains a few lines of unrefined screams, which are far more haunting than any gutturals used throughout the album. The song finally comes to a head when clean vocals, gutturals, and the same effects-laden guitars harmonize with each other for a big finale.
From relentless drums to masterful guitars to powerful guttural vocals, The Wreckage is looking to be the definitive metal album of the year.
In A Word: Diverse
