ex-The Crown guitarist new project starts in style
It’s taken two long years for the former members of Swedish melodic death metal act The Crown to finally unveil some of their new projects, and following on from Johan Lindstrand’s One Man Army And The Undead Quartet (Their debut 21st Century Killing Machine surfaced in January 2006), guitarist Marko Tervonen finally returns with his own project Angel Blake (A name taken from a song of the same name on Danzig’s 2002 album 7:77 - I Luciferi). Apart from vocalist Tony Jelencovich (Ex-Transport League/B-Thong/Mnemic), Angel Blake’s self-titled debut was written, performed, recorded, produced and mixed by Tervonen himself, and like Lindstrand’s own effort, has set out to distance himself from The Crown with a very different sound.
The brief instrumental The Force is a solid start to proceedings with the gentle acoustics soon working their way into some heavy drumming and melodic riffing, which inevitably bleeds into the first vocalised track Retaliate.
Retaliate is an energetic metal number that immediately draws comparisons with Amorphis at their most rock sounding as Jelencovich injects a strong gothic/low register presence amongst the melodic choruses, while Tervonen’s instrumentation is nothing short of heavy, metallic and absolutely rocking. A strong metallic The Cult vibe can be felt within the groove based Lycanthrope and Self-Terminate (Along with some subtle Danzig vocal sounding passages from Jelencovich), while the melancholy acoustic/electric Solitude, My Friend delves further into the darker side of Tervonen’s creative side, without drifting into clichéd territory.
The Forsaken (Preceded by the distorted piano instrumental piece Autumnal) and the doom like ...’Til The End are sombre efforts that could well have come from latter day Paradise Lost mixed with a touch of Sentenced, while Thousand Storms moves seamlessly from a mid paced thrash like opening to a traditional metal based effort without losing any of its intended power along the way. In fact, the only track that really fails to impress is the band’s misguided cover of the Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black. It doesn’t seem to blend in well with the rest of the album, and it’s the only track where Jelencovich doesn’t mesh perfectly with the music.
Aside from the out of place cover, Angel Blake’s debut is a stunning effort that has allowed Tervonen to totally reinvent himself, without alienating (Or cashing in on) the vast fan base that still exists well after the demise of The Crown.
(Metal Blade Records/Stomp Records Distribution)
