The Crown
Death Is Not Dead

The Crown are one of the pioneers in Swedish death metal, or Swedish melodic death metal. Or maybe we should call it the death thrash metal? Whichever title we chose, they have a solid career to look back on and even though they’ve taken some misty roads that’s taken them a bit off course sometimes, they still got more or less everything but commercial success in their CV. This is the ninth album, or eight if you don’t count ’Crowned Unholy’ - the re-recording of ’Crowned In Terrror’, and for this album we can once again see Johan Lindstrand make the noise with the voice as well as a completely new face besides the reliks Marko Tervonen and Magnus Olsfelt. The album is called ’Death Is Not Dead’.

The lack of commercial success makes the band often forgotten when we count important Swedish death metal bands but they really should not be that because looking back in their discography we find some really fine death metal. This new album doesn’t change that and if you’re familiar with the band you’ll soon notice that this album is more or less everything we’ve got used to hear from this band. However, while the revolution has been left for another album there are some fresh winds blowing through this new album and in my opinion this sounds more death metal than they’ve done for some years now.

Death metal is a big word but here it’s really the classic meaning of death metal, not the normal Swedish, Gothenburg version of it. Sure, we get some thrash sound and there are some melodies and not all words are shouted in anger but generally it’s closer to Morbid Angel and Cannibal Corpse than In Flames and Sonic Syndicate. While this is the case for the album in full, the opening part of the album is not. The intro is slow and sweeping but heavy and when the first real song starts it takes the music back some 20 years to the peak of the Swedish death ’n’ roll-era, though slightly more primitive in the sound than how our over produced Swedish albums normally are. Iblis Bane, the second ”real” song takes the music to the Florida swamps, however, at least until they get to the solo some two minutes in to the song and somehow I feel these two-three tracks pretty much sums up the album. It’s a pinch of melodies, a cup of fury, some death ’n’ roll and a pinch of finesse. Put it in a blender. Blend. Pour over to a bowl and whisk. Add some heaviness, if it’s to soft then put some flour in it. Hell, take some granola as well! Put it in the oven at highest temperature and make sure it burns black and crisp then serve with a dirty old 90’s production. This really feels like the Swedish death metal that put it on the map.

While the music sounds alert, the grunting sounds tired and a bit dreary. I don’t know if Lindstrand has taken valium or something before he did his thing but he feels like an exception to an otherwise energetic and creative band. It’s like he’s finding this with growling on an album pretty boring when it comes around. Another (small) issue I have with this album is the second half that tends to become a bit repetitive. The track Speed Kills ends the vinyl LP and somehow this feels pretty much like the end of the whole album for me. What comes therein is pretty much the same as we’ve got already. Not bad but no news either, just some different clothes on the songs.

While ’Death Is Not Dead’, the first studio album for almost five years, probably was thought as the big comeback that should reminds us how great The Crown is, I can’t agree with them that it is. There are some nice tracks on this album, some good stuff all the way but I don’t feel they reach the full distance with this album. After those really nice tracks in the beginning it sort of dies off with both tempo and creativity. The same ideas returns again and again and while the music still is good it’s lose that special feeling that they need to get back in the elite. Decent but no glory.

HHHHHHH