Night Crowned – Tales (Review)

This is the third album from Swedish black metal band Night Crowned.

I thoroughly enjoyed 2021’s Hädanfärd, and my appreciation for its dark charms has only increased over time. Tales gives us 43 minutes of new material, and I have been looking forward to hearing what it has to offer.

Night Crowned’s melodic blend of black and death metal is wonderfully realised on Tales. Night Crowned have a lot of experience, and they put this to good use across these eight songs. The music is well-written and expertly crafted, resulting in a well-rounded album of both instant appeal and deeper hooks.

This is a feast of Scandinavian extreme metal, born with a heart of 90s coldness and delivered with contemporary fervour. These new songs have a powerful presence, and grab the listener forcibly, maintaining their attention throughout the record’s duration.

The band’s blackened assault is as engaging and enjoyable as it was on Hädanfärd, only on Tales Night Crowned have pushed themselves even harder. It’s an album that boasts a refined version of the Night Crowned vision, focused and merciless, to reveal the band in their best light. Alongside this, the music has expanded to showcase an increase in songwriting skills; through good use of dynamics, layering, structuring, detailing, and some outright killer riffs, Night Crowned assert their dominance over the blackened landscape that they inhabit.

Featuring guest vocalists, tasteful clean singing, and added instrumentation, the eight songs on Tales have a lot to offer the discerning black/death metal fan. Aggressive fury, atmospheric grandeur, and melodic might are all skilfully applied in just the right ways. Night Crowned’s new songs build on the impressive strengths of Hädanfärd and take them to new levels.

Tales has not disappointed. In fact, it has exceeded my expectations. Night Crowned’s new album is a thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying excursion into the realms of furiously blackened darkness, and I can’t stop listening to it.

Very highly recommended.