Black Crown Initiate Post New Eight-Minute Ripper, “Invitation”

We didn’t cover it because we were too busy scrambling to stock up on toilet paper due to the coronavirus, clearly the most pressing need related to the pandemic, but progressive death metallers Black Crown Initiate announced earlier this week that their new album, Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape, would come out in August, and that they’d inked a deal with Century Media to release it. Huzzah!

Now the album’s first single, “Invitation,” is out in the world. And it’s a banger, a jam, a slapper, a ripper… whatever you wanna call it, it’s that. It’s nearly eight minutes long, unsurprising by BCI standards, and its runtime showcases a dynamic mix of pummeling grooves, pensive acoustic passages, throaty growls, clean-sung highs and an absolutely scorching guitar solo. In other words, also unsurprising by BCI standard! You know what else is unsurprising about it? It rules.

Stream it below. Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape comes out on August 7. The band released a demo of a track called “Years in Frigid Light” last year, and while it’s unclear whether a finalized version of that one will make the album, it seems very likely given the artwork.