Svart Crown: A Silent Scream From The Abyss

While death metal bands flirting with black metal sensibilities is nothing new, the world-beating clout of Polish blackened death metal masters BEHEMOTH has inspired a wave of bands taking up the sound, blending the thematic mastery and atmospherics of black metal with the skull-crushing brutality of its swaggering, gore obsessed brother. Half a continent West of the Poles base in Gdansk, French blackened death metallers SVART CROWN are showing it’s not just those at the top that are bringing glory to the subgenre with their brand new album – their fifth since 2008 – Wolves Among the Ashes, following on from their Century Media Records debut Abreaction.

“Abreaction has a different taste because I did it pretty much alone. I wrote everything on that album by myself, it was a really hard album to record, a really hard album to write and to defend because it’s really dense and complex. There was also all this tension in SVART CROWN at that moment – that’s why I am the only one left!” SVART CROWN frontman, founding member and creative driving force JB le Bail explains on the progression from Abreaction to Wolves Among the Ashes. “It was an exciting period, but pretty difficult too. Abreaction is an album that I like, but I can see all the mistakes that we made. [With Wolves Among the Ashes] I wanted to do something more straightforward, more direct [and with more focus] on the good ideas that make more sense.”

The challenging period surrounding Abreaction decimated SVART CROWN. Le Bail struggled with the writing and recording process, and following a gruelling touring cycle he was left to rebuild the band from the ground up. A daunting task, but after taking some time to refocus Le Bail once again connected on a creative level with long-serving former SVART CROWN members, drummer Nicolas ‘Ranko’ Muller and guitarist Clément Flandrois.

“They are great friends and their departures from the band was heartbreaking for me,” Le Bail comments. “They were not able to give 100% to SVART CROWN at that time, that’s why they left. But when I had some trouble finding a drummer for this album, Ranko reached out to me and offered to record the album. After a few live shows, he saw the band had changed, the mood was different and it was a more easy-going atmosphere. We reconnected really fast, and we basically wrote Wolves Among the Ashes entirely ourselves.”

The catalyst of inspiration behind the writing of Wolves Among the Ashes came from seeing videos online of the Darvaza gas crater in Turkmenistan – a crater of methane gas that was set alight in 1971 and has been burning ever since, dubbed by Door to Hell. “When I wrote the first song for the album, Thermageddon, I had this vision in mind [of the Darvaza gas crater]. It feels supernatural for me, and a big inspiration.” Le Bail explains.

But while this was the catalyst for Wolves Among the Ashes, Le Bail spends much of the record exploring the nature of self, connecting the music and lyrics to create a very specific mood and leaving his very soul on the page. “It’s very much a reflection on [how I see] the world, about my life, about love, sex, death, spirituality. It’s about me living with my inner demons, fighting my inner demons, and accepting your own being and living with your inner self.”

In a country whose two most notable contributions to the metal scene are progressive metallers GOJIRA and the internationally acclaimed Hellfest, two commercial giants, the strength of the French underground scene may come as a surprise to those not directly involved. But there is a lot of gold to find there. “I think we have a very strong scene here, and I’m really proud of the bands we have here in France.” Le Bail offers with a sense of pride in his national scene. “We have a lot of relevant bands that are really dedicated, and are saying something pertinent. For example, in the black metal scene we have lots of very strong bands, particularly in Paris – the Paris scene in terms of black metal is very strong.”

Wolves Amongst the Ashes represents a new age for SVART CROWN. Reconnected on a creative level with his best friends, Le Bail has crafted arguably his strongest record to date. But this new album also represents something more important; for decades, the French metal scene has been largely overlooked. But SVART CROWN, alongside contemporary heavyweights like THE GREAT OLD ONES, DEATHSPELL OMEGA and AOSOTH, to name but a few, are leading the charge in putting the French scene in the spotlight, and heralding a new age of extremity in Western Europe.

Wolves Among the Ashes is out now via Century Media Records. 

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