Crown
The One

So, just recently I wrote a review of a band in a genre I am not really that much fan of and now it is time to look at a band in another genre I rarely fancy. I am talking about french sludge metal band Crown who have released their debut EP called The One and it has been receiving really rave reviews albeit you have to acknowledge that all of those reviewers are from sludge publications or publications of music near to that which makes them a bit biased towards that kind of music which might explain the lack of less positive reviews. Maybe they just are brilliant? Maybe they are just two guys as is said in the press info, much else isn’t really said and it feels a bit like I don’t know much about this duo more than the fact that they are from France and that their debut EP is out now and has been given to me for review purposes.

Sludge metal is what it is described as, for me it is sluggish, slow, quite mellow and dark. There is a lot of atmosphere on this album, a grande canvas with a sluggish landscape dark and mouldy with barren hills and people running around speaking french, a strange world. There is like a wall of sound where the vocals which are sometimes growling and sometimes something else are buried within this and is barely audible. Production is quite typical post metal, sludge I would say and the variation is not really that much either, in a way it feels like one 32 minute long song but it is five tracks with different names so I am not really sure that is the purpose.

Dirge is a french band that is a bit similar, slow just pumping away with sounds that does not change very much, it is a bit like Crown. I like the atmosphere on this album but it lacks focal points and it feels directionless which cannot be on purpose. It feels a bit like listening to headache or the Bahrain GP (which might be better with Pirelli tyres and DRS/KERS), it is not fun just a sort of elongated dizziness and headache. This EP is a bit like a wasted opportunity, that atmosphere feels like it can be used for something much more interesting than this EP that is mainly a show of how little one can do musically in 32 minutes although countrymen in Dirge are better at that.

I think that deciding to listen to this album over any other album is like forfeiting a free great holiday adventure at some really cool place in benefit of walking back and forth between two big dunes in the Sahara. It seems cool and neat at first sight but after a while it becomes monotone and uninteresting and the lack of real focal points just makes you confused and eventually leads to bad headaches like the ones I get from this album. In a way listening to this album is like listening to a headache or listening to paint drying and the album makes just as much sense as sitting in the grass listening to the bumblebees going about their business, it is as good a music as this album in many ways (unfortunately there’s still snow out there now). I may sound a bit harsh on this album but it is monotone, it has a good atmosphere but listening to it doesn’t really make any sense, it is just boring and I am actually quite pleased with the fact that this review is finally done because now I don’t have to try and make anything out of this EP anymore.