Last year, when Sweden’s The Crown released Hell Is Here, I found the band I had once followed when they were Crown Of Thorns had greatly changed. While I wasn’t totally approving of their change, I did find some merit to their new brand of death-thrash, however felt it could use some fine tuning. One year later, they returned releasing 11 tracks of high speed pure adrenaline pumping fury known as Deathrace King. My first few listens I wasn’t overly impressed, however, after a dozen or so listens I found my head twitching. At first I thought it was an allergic reaction to the new soap I’ve been using, but the higher I turned up the volume the greater the twitch became until my head was snapping back and forth violently, tossing my thinning locks flailing about. It has been years since I’ve heard a music that made me want to thrash mindlessly as I had in the late 80s, of course then I was much younger and my thrashing was much less brutal then. The Crown do more than simply steamroll through the album, they hop into a jet powered funnycar and shred through everything in sight, stopping only once or twice for coffee and donuts between songs. Metal isn’t supposed to make you smile and dance around, it’s not supposed to make you tap your foot and hum, it’s supposed to rip you out of your chair, slap you in the face, making you toss your fists around, trying to grab metal by the throat and beat it senseless, causing you to go toe to toe trading punches with FUCKING METAL. This is the effect The Crown achieve with the consistently interesting shredding riffs, great drumming that is interesting and aggressive without sounding like someone having an epileptic seizure with their feet strapped to the bass drums and angry as fuck vocals screaming for blood. Listening to Deathrace King makes me want to hop into a souped up musclecar and drive on the sidewalk at top speed in Times Square. If you love death metal and thrash combined into one, especially when it’s going 180mph straight at you, then pick up this CD and THRASH! Otherwise, sit in your fucking Hugo listening to your radio and stay the fuck out of the way, grandma. Pedestrians beware, Deathrace King is here!

Written By: Teufel