If you’re a fan of royally good mosh pits, and sick but melodious delivery, this one’s for you! New metalcore act Crowns & Lunacy is something of a supergroup combo drawn from Blenheim and Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Nomen est omen, it’s all in the name…

Tim Mekalick (Bulletbelt) doubles up with lead guitar and drums; Stefan Kahu former member of Suppression, Civilian Down and Evil In Eden throws down with the sweet riffage and epic choruses; Mark Smith on the low notes hailing from the currently touring Boomtown; and last but not least fearless frontman Micky Dean is remembered and recognised from Precursor and Them Dirty Saints. NZM got Crowns & Lunacy to talk us through new single, And They Slew Monsters.

And They Slew Monsters is the follow-up to our debut single, Beautiful Psycho.

For this particular tune, we really wanted to create something as heavy as we could but with the same accessibility we had with Beautiful Psycho. We put a large amount of focus on the riff, looking for that circle pit vibe and a bounce within the riff that gives you a surge of energy as it develops.

Working very closely with TKO Music Producer [Troy Kelly] throughout the entire journey of the band, he has had a huge amount of input with the writing process and really focusing on the arrangement of the songs.

He hears things differently and guides us to write with the focus on the listener as opposed to just another cool riff.

With this song, we think we got the right balance with the vibe we were after: It’s heavy, with all the right hooks and has this element of beauty within the vocal production. The strong vocal pitch transitioning into an epic chorus and the bounce throughout the song, at 5min 8sec it’s over before you know it.

In order to make sure we are prepared before we step into the studio, we have our arrangement nailed during pre-production.

Troy Kelly is a great operator, and he makes sure there is no stone unturned in terms of pre-production before the recording date. The song was mostly complete during pre-production, which freed up our studio time to focus on the details.

The band, as always are, were prepared to turn up to get the job done. The guys stepped it up, and as this is only our second release, we are starting to find what works for us.

We work in a very dynamic environment, and all input from anyone involved, even the input of the artist or photographer, are taken on board and considered.

We are always learning new things with each demo and each studio session, but the main thing we have taken away thus far is “Don’t overthink it, it will all work out!”, and just keep focused on the end product. A lot of musicians scrap things before they have the opportunity to hear it with the band, hear vocals over it, or hear a bass line. Trust the process.

There was a good amount of focus on getting the drum patterns right for each part.

As we work mostly remote, we had not rehearsed as a band until 3 hours before starting to track drums.

This offers some challenges, but also has a number of benefits with not overplaying the song and leaving the development of the parts to the studio where things are under the microscope.

We are very lucky as a band that we have members who are able to play several instruments, which gives us multiple styles and thoughts while tracking each instrument.

The brutal screaming into a beautiful chorus vocally is something that stands out with this tune. It really gives it depth and is a break in the brutality of the riff, drop into the Bridge, and we really bring this tune home as you’re nodding your head.

Give it a listen and we hope you enjoy it.