Better late than never, as they say.
Despite Profane being released a few months ago, I couldn’t in good conscience let the third album by the kings of French blackened death metal Svart Crown go uncovered. From time to time, shit gets lost in the shuffle. We’re only human, and we don’t get paid for this. But when a dude such as myself enjoys an album so much that he envisions it ending up on his annual top 20, he ought to get the word out as much as possible, right? Plus, Svart Crown’s music invites the type of metaphorical unloading that makes this music writing hobby so much fun, so when I got a second wind of addiction from Profane and a fellow Last Rites team member found himself too busy to cover it, I jumped on the opportunity.
And Olaf Metal Face returned in full.
2010’s Witnessing the Fall was that rare type of album that took next to no time to sear the skin right off my face. A listener’s inner dialogue might go something like, “Huh, these guys kinda sound like a black metal Immolation… holy shit THESE GUYS SOUND LIKE A BLACK METAL VERSION OF IMMOLATION… but hold on… there’s way more going on here…” before proceeding to push down that old lady you were helping to cross the street. Turn around, laugh, watch the carnage, repeat (you’ll obviously have to find another old lady). It’s this general feeling that separates them from their most obvious influence. Where Immolation is a cerebral machine, Svart Crown is a corrupt, invading entity in some way. Just saying “evil” sounds cliché, but it isn’t inappropriate. This shit isn’t trying to sound demonic, it just is. (Not to mention, for two albums now Svart Crown has been the better band… just sayin’.)
With Profane, Svart Crown has thoroughly out-Svart Crowned themselves by growing in every aspect of their game. The razor-sharp Vigna-esque riffs are still all over the place, but guitarist Clément Flandrois and guitarist/vocalist JB Le Bail have taken possession of the style like never before, fluttering, chugging, and tremolo-ing all over the place. There is just a more seamless blending of the guitar attack with the band’s blackened tendencies and overall percussive sound. Speaking of percussive sounds… drummer N. Muller is crucial to the album’s success, never doing any one thing in ordinary fashion, and often playing a really rad kind of half drum solo thing over the layered, chaotic, music-as-acrid-smoke finales to several tracks (the title track is a great example). Oh, and that distant, low mix of Witnessing the Fall? Kicked out the fucking window. Profane’s forcefully forward music is properly presented with the tight, punchy studio treatment that it so desperately needs. Le Bail’s vocals benefit from the improved production more than anything else, as he coughs, spews, and barks out his malevolence across the album’s most intense moments and softer, dynamic passages alike.
Another of the areas in which Profane improves on its predecessor is the overall construction and pacing. The intro and first few songs are all killer, no doubt about it, and an album full of tracks of that quality would make this more than essential for most extreme metal fans. But the fourth track, “In Utero: A Place of Hatred and Threat,” is where shit just GETS NUTS. With the vicious, blackened, pseudo breakdown at about 3:35, the members of Svart Crown are all Michael Keaton’s Batman smashing the fucking vase on the mantel. Repeated listens make these huge moments all the more valuable, creating a mix of devilish joy at the music you’re hearing, and edge-of-your-seat anticipation for what you know is just around the corner.
From there, the album provides a brief respite with the moodier early sections of “Until the Last Breath,” which fittingly builds to its own frantic finale. The title track is similarly dynamic, emerging from a softer moment with as pummeling a drum-and-riff combo as exists on the album (like the force of getting rapidly punched by 100 lightweight boxers), ending with that aforementioned improvisation from Muller and some excellent vocal layering. A couple tracks later, Svart Crown drops the 1-2 punch climax (1-2-3 if you include the eerie 80s-montage-before-the-final-fight instrumental “Venomous Ritual”). “Ascetic Purification” is the album’s most violent moment, a swirling, speed-ridden 2-minute capsule of intensity intent on stabbing the listener out of any false sense of peace induced by the preceding interlude. By way of Le Bail’s poisoned lungs, it leads directly into the album’s massive finale, “Revelation: Down Here Stillborn.” This is how you ensure that a listener sticks around until the end an album, folks.
Simply stating that Profane does not have a dull moment is an understatement. It would be more accurate to state that the album ranges from being great to insanely riveting (and a whole ton of fun). Details like a fat hook, false stop, and jittery rhythm show off Svart Crown’s inventive song craft; touches like their ability to successfully cycle around one theme with variation shows off their talent and chemistry. Profane is the product of a band without any perceivable flaws and an absolute can’t-miss for any fan of the extreme side of the metal coin. Svart Crown forcefully pulled the torch from the hands of their forbearers, augmented and modified it, and used it to light the fucking fuse. Follow it to the end.
