Genre-bending, modern post-metalcore quartet, Crown The Empire share the next single from their forthcoming fifth studio album DOGMA out 28thApril via Rise Records.
“We’ve tackled many lofty ideas with the singles we’ve released thus far but with ‘Black Sheep’ we wanted to bring it back down to earth to our early days as a band. When we were playing together in a garage and making songs with a “fuck you” attitude, just for the sake of doing it,” shares vocalist Andy Leo. “We kept that spirit alive with ‘Black Sheep’ and aim to provide a solid 3:52 seconds of in-your-face energy that young crown would’ve loved. We hope you love it too.”
DOGMA, produced and mixed by Zach Jones (Fever 333, Poorstacy, Scene Queen, Nova Twins), is a diverse album fueled by angst, existential identity, isolation, and determination. Over the last three years, the band took time to reflect on personal and collective priorities. This introspection is reflected lyrically in DOGMA. “The lyrics are less wordy and lofty. It’s more honest and direct,” adds Andy Leo who offers a candid perspective on paranormal encounters, manic dreams, and the depths of quarantine.
“We brought back the classic elements of Crown without taking anything away from what we’ve done more recently,” shares longtime bassist and screamer Hayden Tree on the band’s new era. “The high-energy, fast-paced, hard-hitting riffs, with the band’s more melodic side, mashed together into an updated sound.”
Check out ‘Black Sheep’ below.
Be sure to check out the Cover Art, Tracklisting and Pre-order options below.
1. DOGMA 2. Black Sheep 3. Modified 4. Paranoid 5. In Another Life (feat. Courtney LaPlante) 6. Superstar (feat. Remington Leith) 7. Dancing with the Dead 8. Immortalize 9. Someone Else 10. Labyrinth
Pre-orders for the upcoming record are available via the following link.
Post-metalcore quartet, Crown The Empire have announced their fifth studio album DOGMA, set to be released 28th April via Rise Records.
DOGMA, produced and mixed by Zach Jones (Fever 333, Poorstacy, Scene Queen, Nova Twins), is a diverse album fueled by angst, existential identity, isolation, and determination. Over the last three years, the band took time to reflect on personal and collective priorities. This introspection is reflected lyrically in DOGMA. “The lyrics are less wordy and lofty. It’s more honest and direct,” shares vocalist Andy Leo who offers a candid perspective on paranormal encounters, manic dreams, and the depths of quarantine.
“We brought back the classic elements of Crown without taking anything away from what we’ve done more recently,” shares longtime bassist and screamer Hayden Tree on the band’s new era. “The high-energy, fast-paced, hard-hitting riffs, with the band’s more melodic side, mashed together into an updated sound.”
Alongside the announcement, the band offers another glimpse at their forthcoming record with the title track, “DOGMA.”
In addition, check out the Cover Art, Tracklisting and Pre-order options below.
1. DOGMA
2. Black Sheep
3. Modified
4. Paranoid
5. In Another Life (feat. Courtney LaPlante)
6. Superstar (feat. Remington Leith)
7. Dancing with the Dead
8. Immortalize
9. Someone Else
10. Labyrinth
Pre-orders for DOGMA are available via the following link.
Crown The Empire have dropped brand new track ‘InAnother Life’ today. The song features an incredible guest vocal performance from Courtney LaPlante of Spiritbox which perfectly compliments Crown The Empire‘s signature sound of massive, angular riffs, a pummellingly heavy rhythm section, sweeping electronic elements and the compelling light vs dark interplay of Andy Leo‘s emotionally-charged clean vocals and HaydenTree‘s visceral screams.
The song release is accompanied by an official music video which can be watched here.
Speaking on the inspiration for the song, vocalist Andy Leo shares: “In Another Life” was the first song we wrote while working on our new album in the studio. The idea initially started because I was talking with a friend of mine about how we both had just gotten out of seriousrelationships during the pandemic. These relationships that were once comforting and safe now felt confining. Because of COVID, my life got completely derailed and I was getting very little sleep. My entire identity was so wrapped up in myability to sing and tour the world that having that taken away from me made me feel like a ghost.
Over the course of the next year I started having crazy dreams and seeing strange things around my house. One night I saw feetrunning up and down the stairs but brushed it off, telling myself I was just imagining things. But then another night my producercame over and mentioned he saw a girl walking up and down the stairs. Aftersome research,I foundout there hadbeen anactress from the1920’s wholived in myhouse. Shewas ahuge partier, sleptveryfewhours,andwasevenclosetothesameageasmewhenshedied.Ireallyconnectedwithherstoryanditinspiredmeto write this song. We thought Courtney from Spiritbox would be the perfect fit for a guest feature and she crushed it. We’re so stoked to have heron “In Another Life.”
Courtney LaPlante adds “I’m excited for you to hear this new song, I’m happy to be a part of it and it’s been stuck in my head for the last four months, nowit’s time for it to get stuck in yours!”
Be sure to check out the video for ‘In Another Life’ below.
September 2021 is locked in for Slam Dunk Festival where we now have confirmation of the acts who will be playing this years iteration of the festival.
Along with confirming the acts who will still be playing from the originally scheduled May dates, the festival organisers have also announced that Crown The Empire, Escape The Fate, Malevolence, Hacktivist, and Snuff will also be joining the bill.
The acts who sadly are unable to confirm that they can make the rescheduled dates and are no longer part of the bill are 3OH!3, Billy Talent, Code Orange, Dance Gavin Dance, Grayscale, Hands Like Houses, I Am The Avalanche, Issues, Motion City Soundtrack, Sleep On It, The Wonder Years, Young Guns, and Yours Truly.
More acts are set to be announced in the coming weeks.
Check out the full list of bands below.
A The Baboon Show Basement Blood Youth The Bottom Line Bury Tomorrow Chunk! No, Captain Chunk! Comeback Kid Counterparts Crown The Empire Days N Daze Deez Nuts Doll Skin Don Broco Dream State Escape The Fate Face To Face The Faim Four Year Strong Free Throw Hacktivist I Am The Avalanche Ice Nine Kills Knuckle Puck Malevolence Mayday Parade Me First And The Gimme Gimmes Movements NOFX Normandie Pennywise Popes Of Chillitown Reel Big Fish ROAM Snuff Spunge State Champs Static Dress The Story So Far Stray From The Path Sum 41 This Wild Life Trash Boat The Vandals Vukovi Wargasm We Are The In Crowd While She Sleeps With Confidence Your Demise Zebrahead
Slam Dunk Festival 2021 will take place on September 4th 2021 at Temple Newsam, Leeds and on September 5th 2021 at Hatfield Park, Hatfield.
Tickets from last years event will be honoured and remain valid for 2021.
Remaining tickets are on sale now with a range of payment plans, and can be purchased online from seetickets.com.
Gigs might not be back fully yet but there’s a full production shows coming our way as Crown The Empire and Volumes have teamed up for a brand new livestream show!
The two acts will perform The Battle of Los Angeles – a multi-camera, full production performance – on 16th October, streamed from 7PM (New York) / 4PM (Los Angeles) / Midnight (London).
“It’s going to feel amazing to shake off the rust from being quarantined and show-less for so long,” says Crown the Empire singer Andy Leo. “We’ve never tried anything like this before but we’re going to have a lot of fun and we hope the fans can enjoy from home! Grateful for the team behind us that can make this happen.”
“This year has been a rollercoaster for Volumes, so it feels amazing that we have the opportunity to be able to play live together in such a new format and experience,” adds Volumes vocalist Michael Barr. “We feel so lucky to be able to still do what we love, which is connect with our fans even in such a bizarre times. Thank you to Shelter Music Group and Fearless Records for being in our corner and most importantly our fans for sticking by us through thick and thin.”
A few weeks ago, Crown The Empire released ‘07102010’, which is an acoustic record that reimagines tracks from their empire discography to celebrate their tenth anniversary of their very first show!
The band have now taken everything they put on that record and have provided a livestream of it all.
In celebration of their tenth anniversary of their time as a band, Crown The Empire have released an Acoustic record titled as ‘07102010’.
This follows the release of their mini-documtary, ‘Out Of Focus’, which does see the band give an overview of the past decade together.
It was released today (July 10th 2020) via Rise Records, where the record featured stripped down renditions of tracks across their discography, including a brand new track titled as ‘Everything Breaks’.
You can check out the cover artwork and full track listing below.
01.) Aftermath 02.) Cross Our Bones 03.) Blurry (Out Of Place) 04.) Hologram 05.) Memories Of A Broken Heart 06.) Johnny Ringo 07.) Voices 08.) What I Am 09.) Second Thoughts 10.) MZRY 11.) Everything Breaks
You can check the Acoustic record out via spotify below!
We’re back for another week! We have another roundup of ten music videos which have been recently released and they’re always some of my favourites! They’re not all within the same genre and they’re all different in some way or another but that means that there’s a little something for everyone here but enough talk, let’s get down to things.
First up this week we have KOU. This is a new project from Jon Wilkes (Ex- The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus) who released the video ‘Burn’, which exclusively premiered though Punktastic.
Wilkes started KOU in 2009 where the first single was released just back in 2018. In addition to this, KOU is an acronym which stands for ‘Kingdom Of Us’.
“The idea of running a (KOU)coup in defense of our livelihood as humans and anything that holds us back. It’s about following your dreams no matter the cost”-KOU
Wallflower have their upcoming debut record, ‘Teach Yourself To Swim’ set to be released on June 5th 2020.
The latest cut from their release comes in the form of ‘Further Down.
Vini Moreira-Yeoell comments:
“Everything that happens on this track is a perfect combination of everything this record is about and, ultimately, what this band is about. The lyrics to this song contain the album’s title ‘Teach Yourself To Swim’. In the context of the track, it could mean one thing but when you take those words and say them out loud they start to take their own form and we all felt the phrase represented the album perfectly. One of the biggest things we hope people take away from this album is that none of us claim to have any answers to the questions being asked by the songs on the record. It’s about conversation and discourse and figuring out a little bit more about our own traits – both positive and negative. Sometimes it all gets a little overwhelming, that’s what this song is about.”
We move to something a little more crazy in the form of In Hearts Wake. They have a new release for ‘Hellbringer’.
It’s a pretty mental video where you have Polaris’s Jamie Hails turn into a werewolf as well as blood raining down on everyone.
On the track Jake Taylor (vocals) said:
“At some of our American shows extremist groups have picketed outside, telling our fans that they’re ‘going to hell’. If only they knew just how positive the energy inside the venue was! Never judge a book by it’s cover. So rather than fight hate with hate, we decided to have some fun and lean into the metal stereotype.
In 2020 with live streams becoming the new norm, we decided to stage our own hell-bent circus. We thought it would be funny to ask Jamie to dress up as a werewolf, turn me into a vampire and rain blood on the entire band. Guess Halloween came early this year. Thank you Blade.”
The track is off their upcoming release, ‘Kaliyuga’ which is set to be released on August 7th via UNFD.
Let’s keep the genre of the weird and wonderful going. Creeper have added to their upcoming, ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’. The latest cut is ‘All My Friends’, which was filmed remotely and put together by non other than Oll Appleyard (Static Dress).
Moving into the singer / songwriter category now we have A.A. Williams who has dropped a video for ‘Melt’. This is taken off her debut full length record, ‘Forever Blue’.
Next up, we have I Prevail, whom have something truly in their style. They pull no punches where the band address some of the issues taking place right now and there’s a guest on this version of the track where rapper Joyner Lucas lends his vocals to a verse!
We do have to warn viewers here that the video contains scenes which some may find distressing, so please watch with caution!
Time for a fan video! A few weeks ago, The Word Alive revealed that they needed their fans to “Sing along, play instruments, air guitar and more” to help them make a video for their song ‘Thank You’.
And this is what the result has come to! It’s an inspiring video which showcases the fanbase and helps bring people together.
Anyone for a Dutch track? Heavy metal heavyweights Within Temptation have premiered a new video with Kerrang. ‘Entertain You’ is a standalone single which is the first new cut of material since their 2019 record, ‘Resist’.
On the track, the bands vocalist Sharon Den Adel has said:
“The best way to explain the lyrics is to see how we treat a certain groups of people that don’t fit in our society,” begins Sharon. “[There is] a need to emphasise that they do not fit in so we can feel good about ourselves. We’re singling them out, cornering them in all sorts of ways – think of videos of fights in the streets, filming an incident instead of helping someone. They’re not here for our entertainment. It’s a problem that has always been a part of society and it will always be there, unfortunately. So this subject is never old, but it’s something we need to keep talking about so it doesn’t get accepted as normal behaviour.”
This is a new one. Crown The Empire, in addition to releasing a video for ‘BLURRY’, have also launched an AR (Augmented Reality) hologram experience via JADU, an app that “allows fans to enjoy the unique experience of performing with their favourite artists by choosing from a library of photorealistic holograms of different musicians.”
The band adds:
“Hello, it’s been a while since we’ve last spoken. As you may know, our world is in a state of isolation and confusion. The future is unknown and we’re all uncertain of what’s to come. With that being said, we wanted to release something special to get you through these dark times — a song about feeling lost when it seems like all hope is gone.
“We are excited that the official music video for our song ‘BLURRY (out of place)’ is out now.
“Andy Leo has been turned into a hologram, and you can bring him to life wherever you are in the world.
“Download the app, choose the hologram of Andy, scan your surroundings, and he will appear in front of you. Film videos of you and Andy singing/dancing to ‘BLURRY’ together and post them on all your socials. We hope you enjoy this interactive experience as well as the new music video. Stay safe out there.”
And lastly, we turn to what is a hilarious and amazing video, and the fact Megan Fox is in this is just a plus. This is Machine Gun Kelly with his latest track, ‘Bloody Valentine’, off his upcoming ‘Tickets To My Downfall’ record.
Fox force feeds MGK during the video as well as tying him up amongst other things. You have to see it to believe it.
And that’s it for another week of the music video roundup! Be sure to check back next week for another look at the latest music video releases from the best bands around and who knows? Maybe you’ll find your new favourite band on that list.
It’s 4PM on a Friday! This means it’s time for the music video roundup. If you’re new to either the blog or these music video roundup posts, this is how it works. Every week, I watch some of the best recently released music videos and compile them into a list for everyone’s viewing pleasure. They’re span across all the different genres, so expect something different for most of the tracks.
I do apologise for this next iteration coming late as there’s been so much in my personal life going on that I haven’t had any time to write up these posts! But now we’re back and without further ado, the first band on this weeks post is the Pop-Punk duo The Dollyrots which the first taste of their new record in the form of ‘Everything’.
Kelly Ogden (Vocals/Bass) has said: “It threw us for a loop in December when my dad passed away [of complications from heart disease and a type of dementia]. We had just a handful of songs written. But we managed to keep our kids happy through the holidays, and then every night we’d go into our studio and write. Somehow we wrote the best group of songs of our career in those few weeks.”
Up next are the Pop-Rock giants Mayday Parade and their recent video for ‘Looks Red, Tastes Blue’ which is the fifth single from their latest record, ‘Sunnyland’.
Drummer jake Brundrick shared: “We wanted to make a video that connected our fan base even more and ‘Looks Red, Tastes Blue’ was the perfect song to give us that opportunity. No matter what you’re going through in life, we’re there for you. We’re all the same and we’re more connected in this life than you know. We’re family.”
Moving to Cambridge, the singer-songwriter Cavetown has announce he’s just signed to Sire Records where he has released ‘Home’, which he originally released under ‘This Is Home’ in 2015.
On the re-release, Cavetown has said: “I like to re-record older songs that I care about a lot when I think that the production doesn’t do it the justice I feel it deserves… It was time for an upgrade.”
Heading into the British Hardcore territory next, Lock & Key have a new video for their track, ‘Lifeline’.
It’s the second track since they announced their return and hopefully, we’ll see some more huge tracks from the band.
Keeping things hardcore for the next video, with the release of their debut record, ‘Ache’, newcomers MTXS have released the video for ‘Liberation’. It’s shot entirely in black and white, with frontman Paul Collins confronting different people. Just watch it. You’ll be impressed.
Heading straight across the pond, we have the powerful Crown The Empire as they take a looking at the negative aspect of a digital landscape.
On the track, vocalist Andy Leo has said:
“‘Sudden Sky’ is a call to push back on the conformity forced upon us by the world and the realisation that the only solution to the artificial white noise surrounding us is a genuine human connection that can help us reach the full potential of what we’re all capable of.”
How about we move things to the South East? Is that okay? AvaGrace are stepping things up from the EP’s to the full debut record, ‘The Witching Hours’ in a few months time where they have released a brand new video which just so happens to be the title track!
Time to get some Canadians into this list! I’m absolutely loving the influx of Canadian bands in the UK! We can’t get enough of them and I hope indie rockers Mundy’s Bay who have recently signed to Pure Noise Records make it across very soon as they have recently released their EP, ‘Control Room’ of which, ‘Moonlight’ is a part of!
I think Texas and the UK have one thing in common at the moment, it’s boiling! But they have the new Pop-Punk / Powerpop trio Not Ur Girlfrenz who have a colourful new video for ‘New Kids In America’, which is the title track from their debut EP which was released last year.
And finally, they’ve recently conquered Download Festival, they’ve embarked on an intimate half decent (I was at the Newcastle show) and done well and hopefully when they return to the UK, they’ll have a brand new record to play for us! It’s the Living Proof lads in State Champs!
To celebrate a year of their latest record, they’ve given fans an insight where they’ve tapped Elliot Ingham (Who has previously shot the band’s Around The World And Back DVD) to film a live new video for Frozen.
Now, this is a strange one. Black Veil Brides have been denied entry to Canada while they were on their tour with Asking Alexandria and Crown The Empire. On February 26th they couldn’t get across the border to play Vancouver.
This is their statement.
“This morning we arrived at the Canadian border in order to gain access to a country that we have not only played countless shows in but also recorded an album and spent a great deal of time in over the years. Instead, several members of our tour were denied entry, berated and treated with utter contempt by the agents on duty.
We have been touring internationally for a decade and have never experienced such a lack of civility at any border crossing or passport control in any country we have ever visited. We have a fantastic relationship with our Canadian fans and it’s with a very heavy heart that we must share that tonight’s show in Vancouver will be cancelled.
Asking Alexandria will continue on and still perform tonight as scheduled. We encourage everyone to still go to the show and have a great time. Refunds can be obtained at the point of purchase, thank you for your understanding and we promise to return again as soon as possible.”
Jake Pitts took to Instagram to explain it further.
“Of all the years touring, we have never witnessed such hostile and aggressive behavior from border patrol agents.
Don’t worry though, we are all fine and everyone in the band is ok. Nobody is in trouble, nobody did anything wrong, the border agents were just very unreasonable and for whatever reason wanted to make it hell for us. We are very bummed we cannot be there to perform for everyone who was expecting to see us tonight.
We love all our Canadian supporters and I hope we are able to come back soon to make it up for you! Our boys in @askingalexandria and @crowntheempire will still be performing, so feel free to go support them and have an awesome night, otherwise you can seek a refund at the point of purchase. We will see you again soon.”
Almost Anything Music 