Greetings tech fiends, it's that time of the week again. Before we dive into today's column, here's the usual weekly reminder that if you're looking to find even more sick bands, you can do so here.
Every year, there's a solid mix of releases from well-known bands and fairly unknown bands that I dig but don't always get around to covering. So I'm playing catch up today on a fantastic 2022 release from Crown of Madness which I first heard about in February thanks to a premiere over at No Clean Singing. As soon as I heard "The Manipulated" that day through NCS, I knew I'd need to hear the full release.
True to form, The Void, the debut EP from Crown of Madness is one of the best releases from a new tech-death band I've heard in a while. At its core, The Void is rooted in a dissonant technical death metal framework, albeit one shot through with atmospheric death metal, "traditional" technical death metal, and progressive death metal tendencies. What makes the release interesting is how frequently the music darts off in a myriad of different directions outside of its core dissonant tech-death sound a la Ulcerate and Gorguts and so on. The end result of this bold mix between worlds creates a nice hybridized take on technical death metal that sounds fairly unique.
I suppose it's no surprise this is a Canadian-based project, given how much good tech-death comes from Canada. I am a bit surprised though that The Void is the byproduct of just two people, and that this is the first release for this band to boot. This is all the more impressive given the caliber of material at hand from start to finish on The Void. Crown of Madness adeptly explains that their music on The Void, "….gives a feeling of devastation and beauty combined with raw emotional sadness. With chord heavy and interweaving guitar riffs, brutal vocals, and fast technical drumming."
The Void has unfortunately flown beneath the radar so far this year for most of the tech-death sphere. So if you haven't heard this release yet, it's embedded below for your listening pleasure. This is some truly exciting new music from a promising new group. Crown of Madness thrives on creating an emotive and intriguing form of musical complexity that resides outside of conventional technical death metal most of the time. But that's what keeps me coming back to their release, all the ways in which this feels like an outsider's take on a style done boldly. I think many of you will feel the same. You can follow the duo through the Crown of Madness Facebook Page.
