Album Review: Svart Crown – Wolves Among The Ashes

When it comes to making the heaviest music in the room, there’s very little that can compete with the caustic blending of black and death metal, and Svart Crown have long been doing it better than most. Returning with a revised line-up, this fifth full-length certainly packs the punch the initiated have grown used to, but brings some different flavours to the mix as well.

While there’s plenty of the usual breakneck violence at play, they also spend a good deal of time dealing in slower tempos, and it’s suitably crushing. Art Of Obedience is a hulking brute, while the similarly overpowering Blessed Be The Fools throws in some Gregorian chanting to winning effect, and Down To Nowhere abandons distorted guitars and screaming altogether in favour of something more low-key and atmospheric, all to powerful ends.

Managing to be heavy on their own terms and without fear of losing their followers, Svart Crown have once again triumphed.

Verdict: 3/5