BLACK CROWN INITIATE – Debut New Song

Progressive death metal act BLACK CROWN INITIATE have unleashed a new single from their forthcoming album, Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape, due out August 7. New song “Sun of War” can be streamed above.

Guitarist and founding member Andy Thomas offers of the track, “‘Sun of War’ is a song that sort of continues the theme of our Song of the Crippled Bull EP. It centers around life in the end of a repeating universal cycle, and basically mourns the disconnect from what humans truly are: power, truth, and timelessness. It seems appropriate to be released now.”

Having released two critically hailed, fan-worshipped works of progressive death metal, 2014’s Wreckage of Stars and its 2016 follow-up Selves We Cannot Forgive, BLACK CROWN INITIATE have found a new label home with Century Media. Formed in Reading, Pennsylvania in 2012, BLACK CROWN INITIATE have created a stir that’s stretched far beyond the underground with a sound that is at once sweeping, chaotic and epic in scope and ambition.

“It’s an incredible time for us as a band,” says guitarist and vocalist Andy Thomas. “We definitely have the most cohesive lineup we’ve ever had and cliché as it sounds, we are just finishing writing what we feel is our best album. To be on a label like Century Media with the pedigree that it has and the enthusiasm the people behind it have is refreshing as well. It’s a new chapter and in many ways a new beginning for us.”

Joining mainstays Thomas, vocalist James Dorton and bassist Nick Shaw is original BCI guitarist, Ethan McKenna, whose time with the band dates back to its 2013 EP, Crippled Bull . That early recording created a stir for BLACK CROWN INITIATE and found them touring as an unsigned band with the likes of Behemoth, Goatwhore and 1349. “In many ways it feels like things have come full circle,” says Thomas. “Ethan couldn’t be a full-time member back then because of personal obligations. In fact, he was the only guitar student of mine I told that I couldn’t teach anything else to!” In addition, drummer Samuel Santiago, who has played with Canadian deathsters Beyond Creation and France’s Gorod, has taken up drumming duties.