[Cover photo credit to Daniel Johansson]

Swedish Death Metal band The Crown have announced new album Crown Of Thorns due on October 11th, 2024, through Metal Blade Records. The album’s first single, “Churchburner”, is out now, alongside a video.

Crown Of Thorns serves as the band’s twelfth studio album and is the follow-up to 2021’s Royal Destroyer. The band made different creative choices this time to ensure that the LP’s ten songs would stand as a unique collection.

Guitarist Marko Tervonen says:

For me, Cobra Speed Venom and Royal Destroyer are like siblings. [We wanted] to make sure that we would take a step forward, get a bit more out of our comfort zone on Crown Of Thorns. We really wanted this to sound like a new, fresh album and I believe we did it.

I had the idea that we should work a bit backwards. I pushed to create the artwork very early in the process. We wanted the album cover to include a bridge from our hometown Trollhättan called Strömkarlsbron. It has this cool statue on it named ‘Strömkarlen’ [a water spirit]. It made sense to loop it all back to the town where everything started; as most people know, we were called Crown Of Thorns for a few years before we had to shorten the name.

Giannis Nakos’ final cover proved inspirational, as The Crown focused on the music that most complimented the piece.

Tervonen adds:

I wanted something really fast, melodic, heavy, epic, punky, areas we’ve touched before, but step it up to a new level. And to throw in a few surprises was also part of the process.

Musical dynamics are also on a new level with 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.