Though I may not be the first to do it, let me say to The Crown; thank you and fuck you! Thank you for putting out two of my favorite death metal releases in Deathrace King and Possessed 13 and fuck you for being such utter wankers for one minute saying "We’re back together and better than ever, working on re-recording Crowned In Terror, putting together a DVD and working on a big tour." then the next saying "We quit." That said, onto the album itself. In 2002 vocalist Johan Lindstrand decided he’d had enough of the band and left and was replaced by former At The Gates frontman Tomas Lindberg who went on to record Crowned In Terror, only to part ways with the group a month or two after the release of the album. The group as a whole hated the way the effort came out so when Johan rejoined the group in 2003 one of their top priorities was to redo the album and bring it up to the standard they’d set with Deathrace King and Possessed 13. Rather than just enter the studio as a band and re-record the entire effort, only the vocals and bass tracks were redone, along with a new intro and enhanced drums. Personally, I think it would have been easier, and better, to just re-record the whole thing, but that’s the Swedish way of thinking for ya. Personally, I wasn’t a big fan of Crowned In Terror because the album as a whole just lacked the speed and aggression of the aforementioned titles and just came up a little short, and unfortunately, having not changed up the rest of the music on the effort means the music is still a little flat, however the vocals are infinitely better with Johan manning the microphone. The album is a fun death thrash release along the lines of Deathrace King, only with a more melodic rock vibe to it, which isn’t bad, but isn’t the aggressive thrashathon I hoped for. Honestly, the CD itself really isn’t that exciting, and if you already have the original the change in vocals really isn’t reason enough to pick up the re-issue alone, however, the bonus live DVD, taken from the band’s November 24th show in Germany is excellent and definitely worth checking out. There’s really two ways you can look at this release, you can either look at it as a live DVD with a bonus CD, or as a CD with a bonus DVD, either way you get two for the price of one, so as much as I want to bitch about the CD being ho-hum, the DVD more than makes up for it and makes it a must-own for any diehard The Crown fan. Bastards!

Written By: Teufel