Artist: Sacrilegious Crown
Country: Italy
Label: Self-Released
Formats: Cassette EP
Year: 2025
For me, Sacrilegious Crown was a band, or project rather, that popped up on my radar in the surge of Raw/Lo-Fi Black Metal bands that started popping up around 2015 and in the, more or less, five years that followed. The self-titled debut album was the first thing I heard from this mysterious Italian band and I played it quite regularly when it came out, as it wasn’t only a grainy and raw affair, it brought something truly terrifying as well. Eerie, haunting, sinister… Ice cold and with its repetitive riffs, it was definitely one of the highlights of those vibrant years.
Yet, as always is the case when hypes come and go: winners take it all. So, discussions and the struggle for obtaining physical copies were mainly focussed on a few of bands taking the main stage. But besides the rather obvious names of Sanguine Relic, Orgy Of Carrion, Carved Cross, Obskuritatem, Black Cilice, Lampir and the likes there were lots of bands that were at least equally as good, but just seem to lack the flair or sex appeal. Sacrilegious Crown is one such example, delivering good stuff over and over again, but hardly get any recognition.
Fortunately, the anonymous figure behind the band doesn’t seem to care much about it as he stoically marches on, delivering music on a steady pace. But, the fact that ‘Fortress Of The Apparitions’, the band’s eleventh release, is the first one to be featured on these pages is quite telling. So, there’s plenty to rectify.
I started telling that the 2017-released self-titled debut album had been on frequent rotation here and especially appealed to me because of the ominous atmosphere conveyed by the repetitive nature of the music. Well, now that we are a good number of releases and seven years on, it is safe to say that Sacrilegious Crown hasn’t moved on a bit. Idling and stoically plodding along the same path has been elevated to an art form by this Italian solo artist. The raw and lo-fi sort of Black Metal is absurdly one-dimensional and its repetitiveness is absolutely chilling, but if that wasn’t enough already, it resembles a bit of the aura of early Abruptum. In just under 20 minutes, ‘Fortress Of The Apparitions’ takes you on a trip through the darkest corners of the mind. An insanely intense listening experience that certainly is not for the faint of heart. That wasn’t the case when the band started and that certainly isn’t the case now.
This EP is appropriately titled: ‘Fortress Of The Apparitions’. It is unclear whether that is “just a cool-sounding title” or if it has a deeper meaning, with the mind being the fortress in which your darkest thoughts are the apparitions.
Previously the band has worked with such respected labels as Perverse Homage, Nithstang, Canti Eretici Productions and Black Gangrene Productions, but this latest offerings seems to have been released on cassette tape by the band itself. At least, it is available from the Sacrilegious Crown Bandcamp page for a very friendly price. That may come across as poorly disguised stealth marketing, but in fact it is an encouragement to support bands like this and give them the recognition they deserve.
