One listen.

I have no idea as to how representative of the song some of this is. I hope it’s representative, but I don’t know. It would mean looking further into the song and, at least right now, I don’t want to.

I was thinking a bit whilst writing this which wasn’t good, but I was able to lose myself a bit, which was good. I think the writing is mixed, but I do like the result. I think it works well enough.

Conifer’s “Crown Fire” is from Crown Fire.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Ragged guitar, all loose and seemingly angled. A voice talks over the guitar, almost off. Uncomfortable. Another howls out in the background. The guitar tightens up and locks in with percussion, and the percussion builds. Another guitar appears, and the vocals continue on. Then a space, and the vocals gain a clarity for a moment, though a distance, and the sounds resume.

Dry and chugging along the sounds are as the vocals howl and seemingly contort without contorting at all, and there’s something almost celebratory in this until everything going back into that locking in, and sound seems to rain down and build around, and the vocals turn more into noise and sound and glide across themselves, and then it’s space once more.

It’s just guitar and voice for a moment, and it’s sort of ruined in a way. There’s sweeps of other instrumentation here and there, or rather, brushes, and those vocals tense and tighten and release, and everything moves to a quieter mode. Everything seems to settle, though it’s just shrunk.

The guitar seems to murmur and shuffle, and the vocals shiver haunted. They remain low, quiet until they howl out once more. At this time the guitar is building again, and then a sudden release. A sudden stretch from a strike and material ejects itself across the space.

The vocals are now closer, seemingly uncertain, hesitant, haunted by memories. Haunted and uncomfortable, and guitar keeps playing out underneath, or rather along, and then that sudden stretch returns, and a beat plays out more underneath. The vocals shout, losing themselves within themselves, possessed by conviction, almost. Possessed by anything.

The instruments roar into life and play twisted and menacing. They play with inevitability, with weight. They play as though change and reshaping is being driven as though a sudden stake into the matter of things, slowly.

Vocals pained and stressed and disturbed. Vocals consumed by the sound, crying out for something, perhaps salvation, perhaps just being saved. The sounds continue their spread and grind, consuming everything, growing thicker, growing full and consuming more. Consuming unabated and growing distended.

A groove is found and locked onto as the sounds push on. The vocals sound damaged, almost defiant of the spectacle. A pause. A continuation, growing menace, and pushing on into another pause. And again, continuing, and the vocals more distressed, more ruined. A pause. A continuation and more damage in the vocals. More ruin.

Noise in this pause, then another instrumental change as everything swirls and whirls around, and the intensity increases. New horror, new revelation. Moving further inward, enclosing, growing smaller and growing larger, and building. Building into something greater, more intense. Everything lost in noise whilst remaining clear, and something starts bouncing around it all, and most of the instruments fade as vocals seemingly sniff and cry, though they are washed away. They are washed away by increasing electronic noise, bouncing, swirling, pulsing. But everything else comes back in a grand fashion, the vocals destroyed.

Slow this section, slow and climactic, and percussion takes over for a moment before a final strike, leaving noise and a broken character, damaged, hopeless, lost at the song’s end.