Friday, August 14, 2020

Stygian Crown - Stygian Crown (Cruz Del Sur, 2020)



As far as I am concerned, you can never have enough doom metal, particularly when it is of a high standard. While this in itself is a simple philosophy, Stygian Crown have once again proven it valid with the release of their self-titled debut, an album that does everything right. As a result, it has rapidly ascended to a firm place on my top releases of the year so far and would appear to be one that I will be returning to quite regularly in the future.

While I missed their lone demo, released two years ago, I was immediately intrigued once I discovered that Stygian Crown includes among their ranks former Morgion and Keen Of The Crow drummer Rhett Davis, two bands that I still revere and miss in equal measure. Add to that the fact that they make reference to such names as Candlemass, Solitude Aeternus and Black Sabbath as being points of comparison and it became very clear that this was to be a mandatory purchase, thankfully it easily met my resulting high expectations.

Given the above it may seem that what they do is entirely predictable, such doom metal is ultimately quite traditional in execution, and Stygian Crown do work with all of the elements that you would expect however they are far more than just another acolyte. In fact, there is a degree of death metal in some of their riffs that gives the album additional heft, not that they were lacking in heaviness in any case, far from it, and in Melissa Pinion they have a vocalist that is both powerful and emotive.

Obviously, this is most likely to appeal to those, like me, who appreciate this particular form of metal, and I acknowledge it isn't for everybody, but Stygian Crown do it so well that there is also a very real chance that it will work for many. While a new band, they obviously have a wealth of experience already and it shows throughout their debut so it will be interesting to see where they take things in the future, not that there is any need to change what they are doing when it is clearly executed so well in the first place.





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