The Fallen Beauty

Crom’s “The Fallen Beauty” EP is an impressive group of songs that often bring to mind their idols, Viking-era Bathory. Many elements here can be found on classics like “Hammerheart” or “Twilight of the Gods” such as slow tempo songs, clean vocals, choirs, epic atmosphere, huge power chords, acoustic guitars, and lyrics about the Viking age. Fortunately, for all the similarities to Bathory, main man Crom, who handles everything except for drums, can actually sing in tune, unlike Quorthon. The production is also well done and everything sounds big and clear.

“The Fallen Beauty” is the first song on this EP, and greets the listener with a gentle acoustic passage to a backdrop of rain and thunder samples. The electric guitars and drums then kick in, along with choir-like chants that already set up the epic and beautiful atmosphere. Crom then reveals his stellar clean vocals as his lyrics lament over a death of a loved one. This track plays like one you might hear on “Hammerheart” with big, ringing power chords, slow drumming and choirs throughout the rest of the track.

The next track “Vengeance (Part 2)” opens with acoustic guitars and Crom’s warm voice. The first part of the track continues like its predecessor with the choirs, vocals, power chords, and atmosphere. Then, at about the two minute mark, Crom speeds up the tempo, which leads into a nicely done solo, however the solo did not sound high enough in the mix, and was kind of buried between the rhythm guitars and drums. After the solo, Crom returns to beginning of the song and repeats everything up to the up-tempo section, the only difference being the inclusion of rapid double bass for the last minute of the song.

We then come to the eleven-minute “The Wanderer’s House”, which like the previous two tracks, starts with an acoustic passage. The electric guitars and drums join Crom’s vocals after a minute and immediately create the epic Bathory–like atmosphere, with a third guitar laying down an folkish lead line over the familiar power chord and drum style. This pattern continues for about two minutes, and then the acoustic guitar pops in with the rest of the band. The lead guitar come in near the end of the song and plays a few minute solo to the end.

The last song on here is a beautiful cover of Bathory’s “Man of Iron”. Crom’s amazing clean vocals and choirs dominate this track while a lone acoustic guitar with a few effects like chorus, reverb, and delay strums chords. It is a faithful cover and showcases not only Crom’s vocal talent, but how Quorthon could create an excellent song whether it was fast, grim black metal, epic Viking metal, or simple acoustic gems like this one.

Overall, “The Fallen Beauty” EP is very good release that people should look out for. Anyone who likes Viking-era Bathory will really enjoy this. Each composition here is strong enough to stand on its own, and even though they follow a similar template, never get boring. Crom has a lot of potential and I can’t wait until their first full length “Vengeance”.