It’s been 2 years since Ulcerate released Stare into Death and be Still. So if you are fiending for that twisty-turny style of dissonant , experimental death metal, may I offer up Canada’s husband and wife duo, Crown of Madness?

With a shared love of video games and death metal, this couple has delivered a stellar, self produced, 5 song, 18 minute EP that delivers and excellent take on brooding, haunting, discordant death metal, with a few surprises thrown  in here and there.

One surprise is early on, with some gorgeous piano work (courtesy of Claine Lamb) that starts opening/ introductory track “Pale”, I just wish it had been utilized a little more in the rest of the tracks (it’s used in just two). A second surprise, is second track “Eternal Feeding” which delivers a more blackened metal blast within its atonal kaleidoscope . Another surprise, is that it’s the wife half of the duo, Sunshine Schneider, that delivers the gnarly bellows and shriek’s in the vocal department and the guitars, while Connor Gordon handles the drums and professional, hefty mixing. And they clearly work very well together.

The EPs best tracks are the last 2 with “Anguish” (featuring Kaija Krimson of Anarcheon), a shifty, patient, nightmarish number and closer “False God’s Hymn”, where the piano briefly shows up again to create a haunting duality with the dense discordance perfectly.

Clearly, a talented duo, who are also responsible for symphonic black/death metal project Arboreal also, Crown of Madness is a tasty little EP that will hopefully translate into an equally tasty full length sometime soon.

[Visit the band's website]

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