Night CrownedHumanity Will Echo Out

Humanity Will Echo Out marks the debut of new Swedish blackened death metal formation Night Crowned.

MORE: FLASHBACK 1994 // Shaping a Generation: The Offspring’s Smash

Although a new project in itself, Night Crowned is the beneficiary of its familiar members, representing renowned bands The Crown, Dark Funeral, Cipher System, and Nightrage. Humanity Will Echo Out drips with nihilism across only three intricately dense tracks, to create an intriguingly well-developed EP.

While only a three track EP, there is so much laced through Humanity Will Echo Out. Night Crowned has a strong melodic strain to its sound, and while this is reminiscent of an early ‘90s approach, Humanity Will Echo Out has embraced a crisp and defined level of production polish that modernises the sound. This allows the depths of the compositions emerge.

One cannot escape Night Crowned’s careful use of rhythm to create a kind of calculated chaos and freakish entrancement.

One notable feature of Night Crowned’s sound on Humanity Will Echo Out is the sublime, almost warm-toned guitars. The soloing in the opening track No Room For Hope and second track Nocturnal Hope is transcendent. What might have been icy dissonance in All Life Ends is smouldering, foreboding. The smooth, robust leads that create quite stately track openings give way to reveal a brooding, menacing character when melded with Ken Romlin’s ghoulish vocals and the pulverising onslaught of drummer Janne Jaloma and bassist Henric Liljesand. One cannot escape Night Crowned’s careful use of rhythm to create a kind of calculated chaos and freakish entrancement. This is particularly apparent on Nocturnal Pulse, in which Romlin and Jaloma lock in on chant-like effect that is deeply haunting.

The three tracks on Humanity Will Echo Out are carefully constructed, elegantly textured songs, and in this way one can sense the experience of Night Crowned’s membership. Night Crowned have captured the complexities of melodic blackened death metal, spawning a sound that is enriched yet desolate, infernal yet fragile and dark. Humanity Will Echo Out is hopefully a signpost in the pathway to what promises to be an excellent full-length release.

STANDOUT TRACKS: No Room For Hope, Nocturnal Pulse, All Life Ends
STICK THIS NEXT TO: The Spirit, Dissection, Dark Funeral