“Gone To Hell” is the latest single from Swedish death metal legends THE CROWN. The thundering new track comes off the band’s anticipated twelfth studio album, Crown Of Thorns, set for release on October 11th through Metal Blade Records.
Elaborates THE CROWN guitarist Marko Tervonen, “‘Gone To Hell’ is a very special song in many ways. As you may have seen on our older albums, there are quite a few songs where the music is by ‘Olsfelt/Tervonen’ [referring to former bassist Magnus Olsfelt]. But that doesn’t actually mean that we wrote the song together. It was more about Magnus ‘stealing’ some riffs from me from songs that never made it to the albums. So he nicked the best stuff and included them into his songs. But ‘Gone To Hell’ was the first time we wrote something together. Magnus showed me the basic riffs to the song, on bass. We recorded it to a metronome and then I sort of ‘took over.’ I added the melodies, arranged it, wrote the drums and vocals etc. So, it was actually the only song we ever worked on together before he left the band. The song is more mid-tempo oriented; it almost has some post-punk elements to it. I personally love it and I’m super proud of it. I expect to read a lot of ‘what is this soft song shit’ from people, otherwise I will be very disappointed!”
Crown Of Thorns serves as the band’s dynamic follow-up to 2021’s Royal Destroyer and the record’s musical dynamics are on a new level due in no small part to the 2022 addition of drummer Mikael Norén and bassist Mattias Rasmussen as well as the return of lead guitarist Marcus Sunesson, rejoining longtime members Tervonen and vocalist Johan Lindstrand. “With Mikael, we managed to bring back a bit more of that crazy ‘Janne Saarenpää’ feel to the drumming, so that was a really cool energy boost. Mattias comes more from a punk/crust background, and he wrote ‘I Hunt With The Devil’ and ‘Mind Collapse,’ which turned out great. This is definitely a step up in many ways, changing the way we worked on the CSV and RD albums.”
It’s very few bands who have a revered and established career — THE CROWN celebrated their 30th anniversary in 2020 (their first eight years spent as Crown Of Thorns) — yet up the ante continually. With 2018’s Cobra Speed Venom the band reached the same lofty heights as their 2002 landmark release, Crowned In Terror. And with the barbaric Royal Destroyer, and now, 2024’s powerful and unique Crown Of Thorns, the metal vets rage with a rekindled fire and ferocity while honoring their roots. As Tervonen concludes, noting of Crown Of Thorns, “I guess every band needs to do a self-titled album at some point. So now we did it, our way.”
Crown Of Thorns was recorded by Marko Tervonen (Studio-MT), mixed and mastered by Jonas Kjellgren (Black Lounge Studios)
Find preorders at
metalblade.com/thecrown
