Black Crown Initiate: God Loathes Himself, Man Breaks Himself
The 2010s was a decade that belonged firmly to Pennsylvania’s BLACK CROWN INITIATE. Formed in 2013, the genre-bending death metallers released their incredible debut EP, Song of the Crippled Bull, that same year, following it rapidly their 2014 debut, the game-changing A Wreckage of Stars. Blending progressive death metal with flourishes of extreme technicality, blackened elements and an omnipresent sense of melody, BLACK CROWN INITIATE quickly established themselves as one of the premier extreme metal outfits of the modern age. Now, two records on and armed with a brand new deal with the prestigious Century Media Records, their newest record Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape sees the band come full circle, joined by guitarist Ethan McKenna – who was asked to join the band following the release of Song of the Crippled Bull at the start of BLACK CROWN INITIATE’s career.
“Man, it’s crazy. I remember back in 2005 or 2006, I was working in a music store and teaching guitar, and Ethan came in, just a kid at the time, and asked me to teach him how to play IRON MAIDEN riffs.” Founding member and front man Andy Thomas reflects. “I taught him for a few years, he used to play guitar for like 11 hours a day or something, and it got to the point where I just couldn’t teach him any more – but by then we’d become friends. He’s musically brilliant in every way, you could give him a shoelace and he’ll make music come out of it.”
Fascinatingly, the collaboration between McKenna and Thomas for Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape goes back over a decade. “We had a project together before BLACK CROWN INITIATE started, and during that project, in 2008 Ethan, Nick [Shaw, bass] and I wrote Holy Silence which is the second to last track from the new album. Holy Silence was written completely back in 2008 so we’ve had that chemistry for a long time which is why we initially asked him to join the band but he had a lot of personal stuff. But when we got things back together for this album it was a no brainer – he’s a pleasure to work with, and the coolest thing about it is he’s a dear friend. It’s a very cool vibe in the band right now.”
It’s not just McKenna’s presence that helped BLACK CROWN INITIATE reach new heights with Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape, though. This is their debut album with the esteemed Century Media Records following a long stint at eOne. As Thomas explains, the new collaboration worked perfectly.
“A huge portion of my listening growing up consisted of bands that were either signed to Century Media, or CDs I bought from CM Distro. Century Media is a huge part of my DNA, so it’s really cool to be on the label. They do seem to really care about heavy metal in general, but I’ve also had a lot less interference from them as an artist. They sign you because they believe in you and they continue to believe in you after you’ve signed the deal.”
Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape isn’t just a landmark album for BLACK CROWN INITIATE in terms of their career movement, though. For Thomas, this is a deeply personal record that sees him purging himself onto the page, and starting a new beginning in his life. “On a very broad level, this album was a way for me to let go of 32 years of shit. Really it was a way for me to bookmark and close a chapter of my life.” Thomas explains, choosing his words carefully.
“About a year and a half ago I moved out to Arizona, and consciously made decisions to make my life better. These are important decisions to make, ‘cause no one can make them for you. So this record is a concrete point of closure, self-induced closure with a realisation that I can blame whatever or whoever I want for what’s going on in my life but at the end of the day I need to carry my baggage and deal with it so I can be a productive member of society. A friend of mine calls it finding the message in your mess.”
And although deeply personal lyrics have been a mainstay in BLACK CROWN INITIATE’s songwriting for the majority of their career, Thomas is keen to highlight that, this time around, there’s a very different tone to his emotional purging. “Themselves They Cannot Forgive and A Wreckage of Stars were very much me wallowing in self pity. It was productive wallowing I guess, and I’m very proud of those albums, but this time it was time for me to start owning up and growing up.”
Despite both the incredible quality of BLACK CROWN INITIATE’s output and the meteoric rise of their success over the last few years, Thomas remains an incredibly humble man, thankful for everything that has come his way since the release of Song of the Crippled Bull. “That EP was the result of me deciding to write exactly what I wanted and have it professionally recorded, just to say I’d done it before I went and got a job at a factory or something. We put it on Bandcamp for about $3 and then the next thing we knew, we were on tour with BEHEMOTH.” Talk about a last gasp move paying off. But that’s all in the past, now. What matters for Thomas and the rest of BLACK CROWN INITIATE is the future – and off the back of their incredible third record, with his demons purged and new beginning on the horizon, there’s no stopping them.
Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape is out now via Century Media Records.
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