AN NCS PREMIERE: THE HOUSE OF CAPRICORN — “IVORY CROWN”

 

The House of Capricorn from Auckland, New Zealand, describe their music as “apocalyptic devil rock”. To date, they’ve released two albums — Sign of the Cloven Hoof (2010) and In the Devil’s Days (2011) — and on November 7 Svart Records will be releasing their third, Morning Star Rise. As a sign of what’s coming, we bring you the premiere of “Ivory Crown”.

A site with a name like ours might not seem the most obvious match for The House of Capricorn, whose vocals are usually not the growly or shrieking sort, but I’ve been thoroughly captivated by this album, and “Ivory Crown” is one of my favorites in a collection that’s very strong from start to finish. Ironically, the clean vocals have much to do with the music’s appeal.

Relatively speaking “Ivory Crown” is one of the more subdued tracks on the album — if you’re looking for tracks that drive harder on the mayhem end of the spectrum, then I’d recommend “The Road To Hell Is Marked” or “Our Shrouded King”. But “Ivory Crown” is built around such killer melodic hooks that it’s powerfully addictive.

 

 

The song is shrouded in an atmosphere of gothic doom, with a steamroller bass tone and spine-jarring percussion that adds to its weight, but what really makes the song shine are the ringing guitar chords, the massively infectious chorus, a fuzzed-out reverberating guitar solo that’s fantastic — and Marko Pavlovic’s voice. He adds to the occult atmosphere already created by the satanic lyricism, with a kind of dark charisma that reminds me of Peter Steele.

Morning Star Rise will be released on November 7 and can be pre-ordered on CD here or on LP here (and it comes with a download code). One more song — “Our Shrouded King” — premiered in a lyric video and it’s also now streaming on Bandcamp, so I’ve included both the video and the Bandcamp stream below our premiere as well.  Enjoy.

http://thehouseofcapricorn.bandcamp.com