Full Blown Chaos has always been one of the greats of hardcore-leaning metalcore. This album certainly proves it. Heavy Lies the Crown is a mixture of great metal riffing and hardcore aggressiveness and brutality. It has enough metal to keep any metalhead satisfied while keeping the hardcore kids slamdancing to the breakdowns. The lyrical themes are the same as all of the other Full Blown Chaos albums, usually about being positive and overcoming struggles.Heavy Lies the Crown has many good sides to it. Songs like the opener "Firefight" have such great emotion that you can't help but move when listening to it. It is also very experimental as it defies the lines of typical metalcore. Overall, a song like this is very technical for this genre. What stands out most to me is the excellent drumming, especially during the breakdowns. I was also very surprised when I heard "Mojave Part 1". It sounds nothing like something Full Blown Chaos would do at all. It is a clean guitar track in the vein of Pantera's "Flood" or Quo Vadis' "As I Feed the Flames of Hate". Also, the vocals are also much more intense than the past Full Blown Chaos albums.
However, like all great things, there are still some negatives to this. The main one that gets to me is the repetitiveness. If you are listening to this album and don't pay much attention to it, it may seem as if the same riffs are being played over and over again. My one major problem with the vocals is on "Haloes for Heroes", as in the chorus Ray attempts a scream resembling Phil Anselmo. It simply isn't him!
All in all, this is still a decent mix and if you are out shopping for an album, I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys fast, intense, and invigorating metalcore.
Heavy Lies the Crown
1. Firefight
2. The Hard Goodbye
3. Haloes for Heroes
4. Fail like a Champ
5. Heavy Lies the Crown
6. Over the End
7. No Last Call
8. All for Nothing
9. Raise Hell
10. Standpoint
11. Mojave Pt. 1
12. Mojave Pt. 2