NEWS: Black Crown Initiate Announce New Guitar Player and New Song

June 08, 2016 • Leave a Comment

June 8, 2016 -- BLACK CROWN INITIATE have officially announced the departure of longtime guitar player Rik Stelzpflug. Wes Hauch, formerly of THE FACELESS joins the band as his replacement. "It's a really rare and awesome thing if you're able to find a group of dudes that you can genuinely get along with," says Hauch."It's even more rare if your musical tastes and goals are congruent. I can definitely say that's the case right now in Black Crown Initiate and I'm very grateful. Things are great and I'm looking forward to the the future."

The band is also debuting the title track off their forthcoming LP, "Selves We Cannot Forgive" today exclusively via Metalinjection.net. This is the second track the band has released, the first being "For Red Cloud," which was premiered via Metalsucks.net.

The band recently announced new plans to hit the road this summer supporting Australian import Ne Obliviscaris. Dates will kick off on July 12th in San Diego with a full coast to coast run before finishing up back out west in Phoenix one month later on August 12th. "We are incredibly excited!," says guitarist Andy Thomas. "We are long-time fans and even opened for them on their first ever U.S. show. We spoke about this possibility then, and the fact that it is happening makes us all very happy. We are sure that fans of progressive metal will get their fill! See you all there!"

BLACK CROWN INITIATE will release Selves We Cannot Forgive on July 22, 2016 via Entertainment One Music (eOne). The tracklist and visually mindbending cover art created by Travis Smith (Opeth, Devin Townsend, Avenged Sevenfold) can be seen below. "We've been through a great deal as a band since our last release," says Thomas. "We've grown a great deal as writers, players, and people and put everything we had into this one."

Recorded and mixed by Carson Slovak & Grant McFarland (August Burns Red, Texas In July, From Ashes To New) at Atrium Audio Recording Studio’s in Lancaster PA, Selves We Cannot Forgive will be the follow up to the buzzworthy debut LP The Wreckage of Stars released at the end of 2014. The Wreckage of Stars also propelled the band into the international touring act it is today. BCI quickly found themselves on the road with the likes of Behemoth, Deicide, Napalm Death and Voivod.

Selves We Can Not Forgive, the band’s sophomore album with Entertainment One, is a lean and focused collection that jettisons the extraneous fat found too often within ambitious metal bands, striking a balance between fearless adventurousness and methodical might. It follows The Wreckage of Stars, which together with their self-financed Song of the Crippled Bull EP introduced Black Crown Initiate’s unapologetic exploration of everything from Friedrich Nietzsche and Greek Sophist Gorgias to Hinduism, Buddhism, and indigenous mysticism, with a pragmatic skepticism.

Thomas continues on their new release, "we feel it is a more than fitting next chapter for the band; one that we are truly proud and excited to enter. We hope you all enjoy it too. See you on the road!"

Black Crown Initiate have worked their way into the heavy music community’s collective consciousness with steady determination. Likeminded supporters who made the thrilling discovery of songs like “A Great Mistake,” “The Fractured One,” and “Withering Waves” are rewarded in kind by the continued evolution on Selves We Can Not Forgive. As Black Crown Initiate continuously proves, heavy metal and heavy intelligence don’t have to be mutually exclusive. These men are conjuring an awe inspiring body of work that is as unstoppable as it was inevitable, like existence itself. This is high-minded art delivered with a guttural growl.