Headless Crown
Time For Revolution

Swiss debutants Headless Crown thinks it is time for revolution according to the title of their debut album that has a cover artwork that hardly can be described as revolutionary. Then when reading that the band takes inspiration from the heavy metal greats like Accept, Iron Maiden, etc. it is even harder to think that they can be anything revolutionary as there are already like 700 billion albums and bands of that genre already. But never judge anything beforehand, so what about these Swiss guys?

Well, hardly revolutionary is an understatement when it comes to what I hear when I listen to this album. It is easy to hear the inspirations of this band and they sound very Swiss, like Gotthard meets classic heavy metal of the early eighties with a touch more modern production. The songs and styles feels rather dated to me and I have heard it all before so many times that unique or fresh are words that cannot even begin to surface when listening to these guys. The album is also quite long, well over 50 minutes on eleven tracks where the variation isn’t really that much to write home about. I find it very difficult to believe that the Headless Crown will do anything other than drown in the large mainstream of the heavy metal genre.

I grew tired of this album when I heard the first song for the first time and that sensation never really subsided – I really wanted to move on even before I had played through this album once but as usual it has been spinning quite a few times in my music player now and I have not really changed from my initial observation. The songs have a decent level of energy and vocals are okay but as a whole I would say that it is almost impossible to get any kind of lasting impression from this album, the one I have is the waiting for it to end. I cannot even recall the last song the second it ends, the album is that bland. In all fairness I think that album is decent and the songs are alright but it is hard to really bother with it when you get millions of albums that sound exactly like this one. I don’t think it is impossible that heavy metal fans like the album though.

My lasting impression is boring, that is what I think when I listen to this album; it is drab and no song changes that feel. Maybe the band are too cautious in their approach not daring enough to step outside threaded paths, and they might also be too creatively impaired to really make themselves relevant. This is only their debut though and they will have plenty of time to refresh their approach and I am sure that they can do that if they really want to. But this album is just too ordinary and too uninteresting to merit anything but a lower rating.

HHHHHHH