Crown Magnetar – The Hollowing of Godflesh
Release Date: 25th September 2026
Label: Unique Leader Records
Bandcamp
Genre: Deathcore
FFO: Thy Art Is Murder, Signs of the Swarm, The Red Shore, I Declare War, Ov Sulphur, Defeated Sanity.
Review By: Malte Brigge
About twenty years ago, while visiting some friends in Prague, we went barhopping in a less touristy area and, after a few too many rounds, ended up in some empty dive only because we needed to void our bladders. The bartender granted us permission, but, upon exiting the WC, we saw he was pouring us beer we hadn’t ordered. Our addled brains didn’t interpret this in a rational manner (i.e. you use the facilities, you buy a damn beer); instead, we decided we weren’t paying for beer we didn’t order (at three times the then-usual price, mind you) and we left. At full sprint. We slowed down when we reached a nearby tram stop, about a hundred meters down the road, and then I was flat on the ground while the bartender’s massive fists repeatedly slammed into my face.
You know what happens when you get cold-cocked and have absolutely no defense? You just check out. All I could think of was if my glasses were broken. As left, then right, then left face-sized fist again and again crunched into my skull, I felt around for my glasses, which had flown off when he knocked me down. There was nothing I could do against his assault. As much pain as I was in, I was also … a little bored. I was aware that no one getting on or off the trams was going to intervene, nor was my friend in any condition to do anything. As the bulky bartender repeatedly broke my nose, chipped my teeth, and left both eyes deeply bruised, I just waited for it to end.
Eventually, this man who abandoned his bar simply to kick my ass for not paying for a beer I neither ordered nor drank, let up, said nothing, and walked away. I just lay there, bleeding onto the sidewalk. Hindsight tells me it would have been a lot easier, safer and civil to just buy the beer, but sometimes you’ve already had so much of something there is no way to take any more. Everything reaches a limit before it all blends together. You can tell when you’re on the verge of being very sick, possibly clinically, so you need to back off and do something else.
Someone should tell this to Crown Magnetar. Their new album, The Hollowing of Godflesh, sounds exactly like what you would expect if someone said, “Let’s make the most deathcore album we can possibly make.” The ultra-dense compression flattens the programmed drums that pop off like cardboard on Desecrate Infinite, and gives them an unfortunate, mechanized feel. Although there are a few moments across the album with some human-feeling choices, they rarely feel alive. (I’m sure Matt Kilner will add that spark during their live shows.) Rob Maramonte is a talented guitarist who can play at warp speed, but the production sometimes warps his machine gun riffing into bleary indistinction. Desecrate Infinite and Dead Crown have some neat, pointy riffs that stand out a little bit; Impaled Genesis has a sweet, trebly, triplet in the middle; the title track has a weird, wet, hyperspeed slappy thing that’s fun to listen to. The rest of the music bleeds into a downtuned mess of deathcore clichés. Rather than using breakdowns and low-pass filter sweeps to generate tension while Dan Tucker goes “BREEEEEE! DRRRRRRRR! UUUUGGGHHHHH!”, songs are built almost entirely out of these components, and their effect becomes meaningless. I counted four breakdowns on Torture Engine alone (some breakdowns have their own breakdowns!), and five low-pass filter sweeps on Dead Crown. The effect becomes numbing, and any intensity you might have felt in the first thirty seconds of the album quickly drains into a wearisome listening experience.
Deathcore is a large part of the reason I found my way into brutal, extreme, underground metal in the first place, and there are several dedicated bands I will always check out and whose albums I hold dear. I like the claustrophobic, dense, aggression, the angry speeds musicians reach, and I’m dumbfounded by what some vocalists can do. But Crown Magnetar shows no interest in developing their sound. Listening to their discography straight through, there’s no distinction in production, tone, or songwriting between any of their albums. The Hollowing of Godflesh shows they are completely stuck, reiterating genre clichés beyond rationality. It seems they don’t have any ideas left except to just keep punching you in the face for beers you never asked for, never paid for, and never drank.
(1.5 / 5)
