Queen of Swords

This one was a bit of a surprise, considering most promotional materials I had seen kept on throwing out words like "progressive" and "psychedlic" and "rock" and whatnot. This seems to be marketed as something similar to the wave of occult rock that blew up and promptly fizzled out a few years ago like Blood Ceremony and Year of the Goat. There's nothing wrong with that style, I think both of those bands are fine and I've been very vocal about how much I fucking adored Jess and the Ancient Ones before they just went full hippie rock, so I was actually pretty excited to give Crestfallen Queen a spin. Metalheads love retro throwbacks, and it'd be pretty fun to hear a throwback to a style that's barely as old as half of the shit in my refrigerator.

The difference between me and most promo reviewers is that I don't just lazily regurgitate high scores and barely switch up words from the promo blurbs and pass it off as anything resembling actual work. I fuckin' tell it to ya straight. And let me tell ya here, the word "rock" only barely applies here. This is motherfucking heavy doom metal through and through and I'm kind of astounded that they aren't marketing this stronger for fans of actual metal.

Queen of Swords does take a few minutes to really get going, with the pointless intro track going on for far too long and the following title track taking about a minute to really pick up, but once it does you just get clobbered with a skippy galloping riff that smacks more of Candlemass than anything else. I mentioned Jess and the Ancient Ones up there, and that's really a good point of comparison for this. The title track does indeed fall into the more psychedelic rock based trappings of its parent genre in the back half, but instead of the flittery "Jefferson Airplane except about witches this time" thing that was so popular back then, it feels more like JATAO binged on the first four Sabbath albums before entering the studio. Of the six tracks on the album, only four of them are full songs instead of brief interludes, and I'll begrudgingly admit that most of them tend to take their sweet fucking time getting to the point, but the atmosphere is so sublime and well crafted that it's really kind of a minor nitpick. Everything builds wonderfully and climaxes in an extraordinarily satisfying way. It's a slow burn more than instant gratification, constantly ebbing and flowing between psyche rock and 70s doom metal that never stops being entertaining. The vocals are a huge strong suit as well, modulating between soothing coos and rough Janis Joplin-esque hoarse groans, with even a few scattered flat out harsh vocals (check out "Lethean Bed"). They're a perfect complement to the agonizing instrumentals and just helps the whole thing wash over you in total despair.

Like with most things, the relatively succinct runtime helps things stay focused and prevents the longwinded songs from becoming a chore. Only having four full songs that average around eight and a half minutes keeps the album digestible while still indulging in their undeniable skill of slow burning atmosphere. And even then, one the occasions where they do let loose it just makes them hit all the more powerfully. Seriously, that tumbling main riff of "Ghost Warriors" sounds like a meaner, sludgier take on "Children of the Grave" and who the fuck doesn't want to hear that? Whether they're aiming for tripped out psychedelia or crawling, punishing doom metal, or even the sombre doomdeath of the final track Crestfallen Queen absolutely delivers.


Originally written for Lair of the Bastard

Depending upon her presentation the draw of a queen of swords can represent an flawless, Athena-esque goddess who’d shine virtue down upon the troubled like a mother in waiting that’d suggest the bestowed is a biting and engaged virtuous wit. Presented in the inverted position she presents as vengeful stupidity, a brazen idiot stuck in the past that’d not only never learn from it but drag others down into her pit of childish gossip and rueful mental gymnastics. That an armed woman would symbolize both ultimate rationalism and emotional intuition in good times and a scatter-brained emotional wreck in bad times might point to the awkward aging of tarot interpretation but the balance is intended to be uncannily general and each draw of the card is meant as a lesson more than a ‘fortune’ that any gawking parlor-filling idiot might expect. The ‘luck’ of the draw can be a powerful lesson for those who ascribe to pure duality in life that bad and good come at once and in every case and that black and white do not exist in nature without grayness. So grayed are the edges of this fine debut from Stuttgart, Germany based doom metal act Crestfallen Queen who blur the worlds of occult rock and progressive doom metal together on ‘Queen of Swords’, offering a strangely welcoming piece of benevolent, spiteful, and altogether beautiful doom along the way.

As unforgettable as the ‘No More Let Life Divide What Death Can Join Together’ demo from Crestfallen Queen was back in 2017 it was frankly forgotten by the time 2019 and this full-length had rolled around and I don’t think most folks would blame me for not completely recognizing the bands well-developed sound in the two years since. As with Smoulder earlier this year I’d initially felt some longing for the more direct and heavier doom metal leanings of their demo recording but, in both cases their full-length was a much better (and more original) final product. ‘Queen of Swords’ is an interesting prospect because it almost appears deliberate in its skating away from the many cliches that would be quite obvious in an album the combines occult rock, progressive/folk rock, and traditional doom metal that often verges on epic heavy metal in forming their sound.

There is a semblance of Cauchemar‘s more recent ‘epic’ efforts (‘Chapelle Ardente’ especially) in the cadence of ‘Queen of Swords’ as a whole but there are moments that’d feel comfortable on any recent Castle or The Ossuary records that saw each squeezing in a more driving traditional heavy metal style into their doom-rocked sound. Doomstress have done something similar on their most recent record, ‘Sleep Among the Dead’, but from the perspective of combining similar occult rock elements with stoner doom rather than the almost proto-metallic/epic heavy place that makes Crestfallen Queen so difficult to compare with their peers. The ‘progressive doom rock’ tag really does begin to sink in as ‘Queen of Swords’ becomes more familiar a listen as each of the four 8-9 minute tracks that form the whole offer their own mace-swinging, poison-knifing, ode to the way of the warrior, the bard, and the inner piety that’d drive both to ruin.

Growls, bellows, snarls and listless epic heavy apropos wailing each have their moment on the mystifying title track that introduces the album. Some sort of magic happens in the second half of the track as the five minute mark brings a bout of chaos and guitar-wrangling that signals this incredible rhythmic moment, a cosmic bridge to another dimension straight out of the most reverent psychedelic rock playbook with a chiming lead and a glistening progression strummed over its intensity. At some point a total of four guitars have been introduced into this ‘moment’ and there I was truly compelled to see how Crestfallen Queen would manage to top that transcendental rhythmic push. “Eurydice’s Lullaby” does absolutely find a nice driving stoner rock ‘sweet spot’ after a very long build but some post-blackened guitar work and vocal experimentation amount to very little beyond that compelling middle drive. My apologies for the track-by-track but “Ghost Warriors” is the delivery upon the promise of the title track as its “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” riffing develops so beautifully I was floored upon discovering it. At this point I did feel like crossing wires between occult rock (old and new) with traditional doom metal -does- end up resembling stoner metal in many cases but this is something entirely beyond that realm thanks to the vocalist’s (her name is just E.) serious tone and the spacious reverberation of the recording. The dynamic ‘epic’ stature of the piece culminates with a fiddly wah-pedal solo and a heavy refrain complete with some deeper growls that segues into an impossible to predict folk rock section, a gorgeous moment that’d make Blood Ceremony blush, that ends alternating with a driving NWOBHM-esque refrain. I think here the value of the record is present and accounted for even if just in the ~18 minutes of tracks two and four, and the repeatability of the experience will hinge on how successful the interludes and other two (comparably standard) main pieces are for your own taste.

Because so much of this eclectic sub-40 minute doom metal album hinges on the resonance and entertainment value of its four major pieces there is a sort of pass/fail system built into its arrangement. If any one (or two) pieces don’t strike your fancy it’ll manifest as an average-at-best experience. For my own taste Crestfallen Queen did everything they could to make a memorable, if not slightly inconsistent, record that never goes too over the top for a debut full-length. In this sense it was daring in style but safe in execution and I think that is a smart place to begin when introducing the concept of a project. The title track and “Ghost Warriors” were certain standouts but the additional strength of the relatively simple doom-built track “Lethean Bed” helped push the scales above average from my perspective. As such I can give moderately high recommendation of this debut from Crestfallen Queen. Though the preview tracks I’d recommend should be obvious at this point absolutely don’t pass on this album until you’ve heard both “Ghost Warriors” and “Queen of Swords” in full.

Attribution: https://grizzlybutts.com/2019/06/04/crestfallen-queen-queen-of-swords-2019-review/