Album Review: Crown of Madness - Memories Fragmented
Reviewed by Eric Clifford
Does anyone remember Ageless Oblivion? Anyone? No? Alright, I don’t blame you – I recall going to one of their shows and being one of around seven people there, some of which were in the band. But they deserved better – their “Penthos” album was distilled brilliance; listen to “Where Wasps Now Nest” if you happen to require convincing. It was in connection to them that I first heard the term “post death metal”. I don’t hear it used especially frequently (or at all), possibly because...well, what the fuck does it even mean? The article I first came across the term in seemed to be connecting it to a loose conglomerate of bands still definitively death metal, but that strove for a more emotionally evocative take on the genre, with bleak, wracking melodies woven in amongst the guts and grime. Kind of bleeding into disso-death territory at the periphery, it’s never really been the most concrete of definitions, but even so there’s a better-than-zero chance that you’ve heard of the band cited as the monarchs of the movement: Ulcerate.
That Ulcerate are a major influence on Crown of Madness should go almost without saying from the first minute of playtime. It’s in the abstruse yet plaintive melodicism, the undergirding rage and ill-will, the heterogeneous song structures – their influence hangs like inauspicious omens over Crown of Madness; and why not? for good reason Ulcerate are one of the most widely lauded metal bands of the last 20 years, every drop from their glistening viscera deferentially lapped with longing tongues and glad hearts. So far as a muse of sorts might go, worse could be done. But if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it’s also the most creatively void, inherently incapable of growth beyond it’s borders. What’s really important to establish, then, is whether any of Ulcerate’s baleful brood are capable of usurping their crown.
Well, we’re not quite at the level of a regicide here, but do we need to be? Crown of Madness have here delivered a stellar release lavishly punctuated by moments of sublimity, from the lightless, cynical melodies of “Ashes of Mine” with it’s gruesome introductory riff morphing gloomily into flurries of blastbeats, to the gorgeous tapped leadwork of “The Grand Design” closing the album out in majestic style. Songs are complex and layered, melodies melding into stirring fragments, shimmering in the midst of songs like “Sovereign Blood” at 02:38, before the rest of the track self-destructs and crumples around itself, the tempo slowing like settling rubble. Akin to their forefathers, Crown of Madness show a practiced hand for subtler textures; sparse clean guitars usher “When I Don’t Remember You” to a cold, friendless closure, and as with all good things, the igneous legacy of Morbid Angel seethes and sparks from within – the staccato chug-into-tremelo trappings of “Burdened” for one example, “Sea of Fangs” and it’s voracious caldera eruption of riffs for another.
I love the clarity on the bass; the guitar plucks out delicate, spacious lines creaking and bowed under with regret, while churning below writhe mutant, gristly bass lines hauled fresh from the coals of Jahannam itself. I’d have taken a more organic drum sound; not that the performance itself draws ire, but the snare has a flat, hard “clack” to it. I’m not sure whether Connor Gordon (the drummer) knew that his kit had been swapped out with a glockenspiel, but it seems he made do either way. To be fair, I’ve a marked preference for particular snare sounds in extreme metal – either tuned higher than Afroman free climbing the Burj Khalifa or with the dull thump of a haymaker into the ribs of a hollowed cadaver. This mechanical clicking isn’t doing it for me, even if the actual drumming itself is superb, emphasising and accentuating every riff with a bountiful wellspring of blasts and grooves, switching, morphing, reinventing itself always.
There are tweaks I’d make beyond production woes; “Deafening” contains a solo – a good one as it happens, but also a lonesome one. I’m not knocking the grace of the compositions here but it would’ve been nice to hear more solos through the release, especially considering that the aptitude for such is clearly present. There aren’t any bad songs, but some do occasionally linger on slightly more aimless transitional phrases, as though the song as a whole saw artisanal, gothic edifices raised skyward but could only come up with a rope ladder made of strawberry laces and a half-chewed Snickers bar to link them. This isn’t a consistent flaw but it is noticeable here and there in tracks that are otherwise excellent, and the offending sections stand out all the more for the brilliance surrounding them – “Dreamless Nights No Longer” courses like a torrent through movements seamlessly, the expertise of it’s drum work ensuring this gracious flow from one place to another, whereas “Hollow Thresher” seems instead to rather meander, uncertain of how best to traverse the space betwixt A and B. It’s a fault partially compounded by album sequencing – bookended by “Dreamless Nights No Longer” and “The Grand Design”, “Hollow Thresher” perhaps seems a mite less enthralling than it would have had it been elsewhere on the release.
There is so much to like about Crown of Madness’ work. They weave so many subtle intricacies in – take the way riffs pan between headphones/speakers to build a stratified sound lasagne for example, it’s gorgeous, and I’ve barely even touched on it. As an album, it’s melancholic and multifaceted, richly emotional in a way that death metal generally eschews while retaining the all-important sheer violence of the style. Occasionally beautiful, often technical, and always interesting, you’d be remiss not at least giving it a once-over. There are blemishes for sure, but the sum total of the experience is nonetheless glowing, and I can only hope for a follow-up sooner rather than later.
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