E.P. Review: Crown Magnetar - Alone In Death
Reviewed by Dan Phipps
US deathcore band Crown Magnetar are a fairly new band having formed during 2017, but in less than 5 years of existence the Colorado band, have a couple of releases under their belt and have now signed to a household name label in extreme metal. The bands critically acclaimed debut full length 'The Codex Of Flesh' now makes way for the bands new E.P. 'Alone in Death' which comes out via Unique Leader records.
'Alone in Death' is a release with a tale of 2 parts, the parts I enjoy and the parts I am not as struck on so let’s talk about what I enjoy and that is the technical aspect of this E.P. When Crown Magnetar let the technical side loose, this E.P. is an absolutely furious listen. The riffs cut through with precision and have a devastating heavy tone and the drums batter like a 6am police raid especially the kicks which are cut through quite heavily in the mix. The vocals are just vicious mixing between intense deep low’s and insane shrieking high’s, if I’m honest the lower vocal tone is more to my taste but both sound good and full of power. Through the E.P. Crown Magnetar definitely provide a heavy dose of quality death metal precision especially during tracks such as 'Hellsphere' and 'Realistic Flesh Mask' which are the two tracks that I most enjoyed on the release.
The production overall throughout 'Alone in Death' is very clean and clinical, personally I prefer a rawer production but that’s a personal preference which does not take away from the songs and the bands writing ability. What I was not as struck on was the more deathcore elements on 'Alone in Death'. Now before I go further yes I am aware this band considers themselves deathcore, but in my opinion this is a weakness in a very good technical death metal E.P. As with most deathcore I found the breakdowns a bit monotonous and even though they were heavy just took away from the strength of the rest of each track.
As much as this E.P. is not in my usual taste, I can’t knock how it has been crafted, and the band definitely shows some massive displays of great technical song writing. If deathcore is your thing then 'Alone in Death' needs to be something you check out as it’s a bright spot in a style which is mostly truly dire.
