SEEN AND HEARD: THE CROWN, WOLFBRIGADE, HORRENDOUS, FERAL NATURE, WRETCHGOD

The Crown – photo by Daniel Johansson

(Written by Islander)

I had fewer commitments to prepare NCS posts for today than usual, so I used the extra time to try to make this coming weekend’s roundups a little less daunting by featuring a handful of new songs and videos today.

Today’s roundup leads off with some well-known names from the metal pantheon, but as we always try to do, I’ve also worked in some stuff from deeper in the metal underground.

THE CROWN (Sweden)

I had to start with The Crown. Metal Blade announced this week that they will release this band’s 12th studio album, Crown of Thorns, on October 11th. The press release included this quote from guitarist Marko Tervonen:

“I had the idea that we should work a bit backwards. I pushed to create the artwork very early in the process. We wanted the album cover to include a bridge from our hometown Trollhättan called Strömkarlsbron. It has this cool statue on it named ‘Strömkarlen’ [a water spirit]. It made sense to loop it all back to the town where everything started; as most people know, we were called Crown Of Thorns for a few years before we had to shorten the name.”

Tervonen also commented: “I wanted something really fast, melodic, heavy, epic, punky, areas we’ve touched before, but step it up to a new level. And to throw in a few surprises was also part of the process.”

It’s also worth noting that the new album includes performances by new drummer Mikael Norén and bassist Mattias Rasmussen, as well as the return of lead guitarist Marcus Sunesson, rejoining longtime members Tervonen and vocalist Johan Lindstrand — and there’s a change in guitar tuning as well.

The first tangible sign of the new album’s music is a song called “Churchburner“, and it arrived with a diabolical video. It’s a mean and maniacal discharge, relentlessly fast and furious, not without grooves but overflowing with boiling, blurting, and skittering fretwork and sheer screaming and howling vocal hostility.

Not what I was expecting, but I applaud the vicious, unchained intensity.

http://www.metalblade.com/thecrown
http://www.thecrownofficial.com/
https://www.facebook.com/thecrownofficial/
https://www.instagram.com/thecrownband

 

 

WOLFBRIGADE (Sweden)

My next pick is another long-running band from Sweden and another forthcoming release by Metal Blade.

The name of Wolfbrigade‘s new album is Life Knife Death, and what we got this week was the premiere of its title track, about which the band offered this comment: “Mankind casts a long shadow of bloodshed and brutality. From a whack on the head with a mammoth’s thigh bone to a drone strike against a children’s hospital. Life’s gonna life, human’s gonna knife.” And then check out this quote about the album as a whole:

“Mankind – a virus with shoes. As always, our lyrics are fueled by the ever-growing disgust we feel about humanity. The everyday realization that we are a part of this fear-animalistic stupidity that drives the world further into oblivion. The inspiration just keeps raining down from the sky, killing the masses. Waking up to this every day makes us want to scream in horror.”

Photo by Therese Öhrvall

By now you have a good idea what you’re going to get from this band, but that doesn’t make the results any less thrilling and cathartic, as this new song proves. It’s always fun to run with these wolves.

The blaring and defiant riffage is an immediate hook; the bounding punk beats and vividly throbbing bass-lines create hooks of their own; and the vocals are spine-shivering in their raw and raging intensity. Very cool soloing too, which pitches the music to even greater heights of glorious rebellion.

Life Knife Death will be released on September 13th.

https://www.metalblade.com/wolfbrigade/
https://www.instagram.com/wolfbrigadeofficial
https://www.facebook.com/lycanthropunks

 

 

HORRENDOUS (U.S.)

Horrendous don’t have the many decades of music behind them that the first two bands in this roundup have, but they’ve made damned good use of the time they have had, with five albums to their name since 2012. The most recent one, 2023’s Ontological Mysterium on Season of Mist, propelled them to even further heights of acclaim. Even at our humble site it made many year-end lists by our writers, including Andy Synn‘s list of 2023’s “Great” Albums.

As a reminder of that fantastic record, this week brought us the first-ever music video by Horrendous (if you don’t include lyric videos). It’s for a song from Ontological Mysterium called “Preterition Hymn“. Here’s how the band presented it:

“Our long awaited video debut is a symbolic journey through the lyrical themes of ‘Preterition Hymn’. It’s a psalm for the lowly and the damned, the Preterite and the passed over, sitting beneath the feet of the elect. Our downtrodden heroes are driven in chains by a mournful god to their final trial in this realm, sounding their last desperate cries in defiance of the fate bestowed upon them–and upon all of us. Is their sacrifice enough to win salvation? To rise in glorious flames?

“In communion with the spirit of the song, we endured the pain of icy November waters, risking life and limb to capture and offer up an authentic sacrifice in the name of the Preterite ones. Lift your voices along with our heroes that you may ascend before the tides rise again…”

photo by Scott Kinkade

The video, made by David Brodsky for My Good Eye: Music Visuals, is a very cool thing to watch, and of course the song is a fascinating slow-burn, one that gradually spins out a seductive but unsettling spell, even as the words burn like acid — until they change. Near the end the notes gloriously peal like bells as the music rises, and then become gentle, one last change in the spell.

https://redirect.season-of-mist.com/HorrendousShop
https://orcd.co/ontologicalmysteriumpresave
https://www.facebook.com/HorrendousDeathMetal
https://www.instagram.com/horrendous_official/

 

 

FERAL NATURE (Norway)

One one level — the scale of notoriety — we’re continuing a descent in today’s roundup. This next song, after all, is the first single from a Norwegian hardcore band named Feral Nature. On the other hand, it’s not a musical descent at all, because it will kick your pulse rate into overdrive.

The name of the song is “Unleash“, and that’s what it does in terms of intensity and punch. As vocalist Selma Bahner bounces around the floor in the accompanying video, she screams in a bloody fury while her bandmates (Rob Hamilton, Will Morris, and Mathias Myren) send out gang howls as well as rumbling, battering, and scampering beats and riffing that slugs, claws, maniacally boils, and puts the jackhammers on our necks.

Short and sweet, and the video (directed and edited by bassist Morris) is a good one too.

“Unleash” is out now as a digital single, and we’re told an EP is on the way as well.

https://feralnature.bandcamp.com/track/unleash
https://open.spotify.com/track/1buOF4mSI8m5GMKasjSH6g
https://www.instagram.com/feralnatureband/
https://www.facebook.com/feralnatureband

 

 

WRETCHGOD (U.S.)

To close today’s brief roundup I picked a new song and video from Omaha-based Wretchgod, another fairly new band (their debut two-track EP Stygian Blood Ritual was released in April 2022). This new song, “Altars of Flesh“, is off a new EP named Suffering Upon Suffering which will be out on September 6th.

The well-made video, written and directed by the band’s guitarist Brent Maze, combines creepy and occult wilderness imagery and red-shifted film of the band’s live-wire performance. As for the music, it’s a harrowing scourge of blackened death metal.

As the drums detonate and blast in a fury and the bass mimics magma, the riffing relentlessly torques the tension, writhing and burrowing like ants under the skin, and the vocals scream like a furious demon that’s come unhinged.

The riffing also thunders, slashes, squalls, and dismally moans, and the soloing seems to wail in agony. For good measure, the band put the pile-drivers to work on your spine, too. In other words, it’s a dynamic and multi-faceted assault on the senses, exhilarating but murderous. (It’s out now on all major streaming services, and Bandcamp.)

https://wretchgod.bandcamp.com/track/altars-of-flesh
https://www.facebook.com/wretchgodband/