Of course there’s not much proper Motörhead here, but this is just to warn you that Magmafröst, the new, full-length album by fantasy-loving Italian trio Kröwnn, is primarily and overwhelmingly a yummy slab of metal …The substantial Hyborian Age demo (HERE) was the first, super-tight effort of these doomsters crawling out of the heavy music scene in charming Venice, Italy, back in early 2013.
The new album, Magmafröst, was completed in mid June 2014 and, basically still steaming hot, was immediately injected into the net and released in digital form via Bandcamp. In these late summer-early autumn weeks the band is setting stages to fire while touring around, and finishing the crafting of the beloved solid versions of the new album (CD, tape and vinyl) which will be out soon soon. So time has more than come for writing about the Kröwnn bunch …
Hyborian Age was deeply rooted into old school heavy doom in the vein of Cathedral-Trouble with a marked penchant towards epic doom metal à-la-Candlemass as well as towards gothic tinges at least vocal-wise (many recognized a remarkable affinity of frontman Michele’s chanting style with both Messiah Marcolin and Pete Steele). Fantasy (by Tolkien, Howard, Martin, etc.) is the passion and the genre preferred by frontman Michele for writing the lyrics of Kröwnn’s music. So it comes as natural for me to imagine Hyborian Age like a baby beast of heavy doom right out of its huge egg and uttering its hungry calls in lo-fi. But now the doom beast has grown up, huge and in full power. Magmafröst includes eight tracks, that means six full-bodied songs and two short instrumental tracks for intro and outro, all of them masterfully produced. The big tracks may reach over 8 minutes length, but, believe me, time will fly even too quicker …
Bennu, the short instrumental intro, is a perfect foreboding. But the obscure rarefaction of this 1 minute-and-a-half intro won’t reveal anything of the upcoming riff thunderstorm right at the onset of Skeksis Dance and that will mark the next +45 minutes of the album.
One says Doom and may think about something slow, heavy and bleak. But most of the times at Kröwnn’s home Doom means tsunami of riffs as high as half mountain and by which you’ll be happy to be continuously overwhelmed. Kröwnn’s Doom is the thick, Iommi-centric groove-drenched doom which is also dripping sweat for the sultry air of Maryland. Doom lead by a mammoth pace but naturally able to gain speed in powerfully rolling waves of heavy metal, a boiling hot and “metal-macho” doom to the utmost, no matter if two thirds of the Kröwnn band are women, Elena on drums e Silvia Selvaggia (that means “wild”!) on bass. Tough women …Skeksis Dance is lead by a rather simple basic melody, however it is so easy to be caught by it as if being swallowed into a pitch-dense space-time vortex. This sonic vortex will invariably draw me and you all in a parallel world for experiencing a weird adventure as sinister as the strained and dissonant narrating voice (frontman Michele) and as the malignant whispers materializing towards the end of this first ballad.
To Minas Morgul is a magnificent flow of molten steel which is structured somehow similarly to Wyvernking because it starts in a way and it evolves in something else. But the way the metamorphosis will take place is different, of course. The initial leading, definitely bass-driven melody is solid and seducing at the same time because of that swinging between tight riff badassery and the morbid, nocturnal atmosphere evoked by the vibrating bass chord and the luring bewitching whispers. If Wyvernking was evolving into acid space metal madness, in To Minas Morgul the trio further downtune their guitars, tighten their skins, and unleash a long, breathlessly rumbling riff charge calling for war. It’s Tolkien speaking …
Forge Of Crom is the last doom ballad before Cernunnos, the long ambient instrumental outro closing the album. The forge is effectively evoked by some noise of hammers beating on metal. You call for metal, you’ll have it! The riffage starts as slow paced and no less than majestic, Sleep-like. But the Kröwnn trio adores action and so you have to expect the continuous merging between dark, ultra-slow heaviness and the dynamic aggression of the faster parts. When the riffs stop, sharply, it will be like waking up from a hypnotizing experiment, and the peaceful pastoral melody in the instrumental outro will not reveal what you have been through before …
Magmafröst reveals great skills and a magic chemistry between the musicians, which have however been forged just by simple “elbow grease”: endless sessions of rehearsing and writing music together as well as a long experience in playing live (in other bands). The trio is also involved in the mastering and in the other artistic sides of their releases, which are auto-produced. As a matter of fact the label releasing CD, Tape and vinyl, Bizzarian Records, is the band’s own label. A special mention goes to the exquisite cover arts for Kröwnn’s albums which is resulting from a collaboration with artist Raoul of View From The Coffin (Lento, The Secret, Bastard Sapling, Grime, Fuoco Fatuo, etc.).
Magmafröst and Kröwnn - An album to have and to headbang to, a band to experience live …
Words. Marilena Moroni
Kröwnn @ Bandcamp
Kröwnn @ Facebook