For I Am King: Executioner’s Tax

Bands these days are like buses; some speed through their routes and finish early, others arrive late, and the rest get lost entirely. Going the distance these days isn’t so easy, especially when a global pandemic and cost of living crisis create high hurdles to hop. Hitting double digits is a cause to celebrate, and melodic death metal troupe FOR I AM KING are marking their 10th birthday with their crowning achievement: new album Crown.

“For me, Crown represents the 10 years of FOR I AM KING!” Beams vocalist Alma Alizadeh from her home in Holland, just days after the album’s release. “Crown is a product of us as a band, as we are going from our past album, where we’ve exchanged a drummer, with Ivo [Maarhuis] and it’s a new cycle.”

Alma, Ivo, bassist Jurgan van Straaten, and guitarists Koen Scheepens and Wouter Cammelbeeck are chomping at the bit to get the cycle of Crown underway. They might be ten years-long in the tooth, but their last album I landed five years ago, and work on Crown began as early as 2019.

“As soon as we released I, we wanted to continue writing new material, so we did that, and then 2020 happened and with all the things happening, we had to find time and motivation to stick together and to continue writing,” reflects Alma on a tumultuous five years thwarted by global pandemics and warring countries. “I’m very proud and very happy that we’ve finally released Crown, it’s been a journey but a very nice one. For me, it’s like a little bit of a burden has been released.”

Channelling the frustrations of nearly five years waiting for the world to recover into an album that embellishes their metalcore musings with a melodic death metal maturity is no small feat. Alma’s vocals slice through you like a knife, spitting venom into your open veins – it’s delivery is a product of their predicament.

“I recorded my vocals with our bass player and we did it partly in 2021 and in 2022, because we had times that we were not allowed to come together, and we had the lockdowns here,” Alma says, looking back at a time that only stoked the fires of creation. “We had more time to think about the meaning of the lyrics, and to put more effort in my screaming parts; I think it makes the album more aggressive, more powerful.”

That aggression, and that power, can be felt in the melodic sprawl of closer Disciples, which Alma remembers as “one of the first songs for Crown” where you can hear “in the song that that’s the transition between I going into Crown”. But it wasn’t Disciples’ sonic evolution that helped them spread their wings, but a working title that gave birth to the album we hear today.

“Before we started writing Disciples, we already had concepts made for the album, so I wanted to make sure the story of the king would continue on the album, and the writing title of the album was ‘The Execution’,” laughs Alma, holding her hands up in surrender as she mimics a ‘woah’. “The concept story was that the king of I was being executed, and the followers of the king doesn’t want him anymore so he’s going to get executed.”

The tale of the execution is hidden in the album’s artwork. It’s a bonus for those indulging in the physical editions to flick through and discover. It’s also everything you need to understand Crown’s duelling sides. “It’s very beautiful but if you zoom in, you see it’s not such a beautiful thing going on. I wanted it to be an album that when my mum picks it up and sees it she says ‘oh, what a cute and nice album and it looks so beautiful’ but the music should be very hard, and powerful, and angry like the two sides of it.”

Crown, as far as FOR I AM KING are concerned, is an open book on the corruption and misuse of power in the modern age. Having dug a little deeper into their own personal lives on I, Crown sees FOR I AM KING zooming out for some global commentary through different lenses, whether that’s our dependence on technology (Trojans) or our parental responsibilities (Bloodline).

With two albums exploring the rise and fall of the king under their belts, and the titular character as dead as a doornail, where do they see their world-building moving from here? “I really love the concept, and of course we are the band called FOR I AM KING so we will continue to use that part of the concept, but maybe there will be a new story, because with Demons, we had not yet introduced the king,” Alma suggests, before stopping her train of thought in its tracks and pondering a different direction. “I’m not sure actually if I want to continue to take the king to the next story, so I don’t know, it’s going to be a surprise.”

Regardless of where they’re heading, FOR I AM KING are simply grateful to have gotten this far. Having fled Iran as a political refugee at the age of nine, the idea of being in a band was more alien than outer space. “We always forget we started FOR I AM KING as a hobby and a thing that we love, and we have so much passion for it, and we’re still doing the same thing. I’m very grateful that I can be in the band and for the things we’re able to do, because I don’t want to take it for granted.”

Crown is out now via Prime Collective.

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