Review: Crown The Empire – “Retrograde”

A band’s third album is sometimes more important than the sophomore record. In the case of Crown The Empire, that especially holds true. Their 2014 album Resistance: Rise Of The Runaways charted in the Billboard Top 10 (which is pretty incredible), and the band started headlining some absolutely massive tours. They’re playing the main stage at Warped all summer as well – so where is the band going from here? The answer is Retrograde.

Retrograde works for Crown The Empire as their best album yet, because of many reasons – the two big ones are that the band’s trademark post-hardcore sound is more streamlined, and the other is that everything is simply bigger. The choruses are stronger, the instrumentals are better, and there’s some pretty impressive drumming overall as well. “Lucky Us” is a punchy, sludgy track unlike anything the band has ever written before, while the more conventional singles like “Hologram” are ones that wouldn’t sound out of place on a 30 Seconds To Mars or My Chemical Romance record (seriously!). “Weight Of The World” is a fairly obvious ploy for play on rock radio, but that’s not a bad thing either – it’s a basic mid-tempo song with an obscenely catchy chorus that’ll get stuck in your head.

There’s a few surprises here as well. “Zero” is quite possibly the best song Crown The Empire has ever written. There’s (you guessed it) a catchy chorus, but even more than that, “Zero” is a truly anthemic song that needs to be on rock radio pronto. It’s definitely the best song on the album, as well as a sign of their newfound accessibility. The change in style is certainly one that suits them, and vaults them far ahead of their peers (even if not every song on the album matches “Zero” and “Lucky Us”).

Retrograde is a natural progression of the band’s sound. There’s very little to dislike here – while some fans may be disappointed in the relative lack of screaming and aggression, the streamlined sound works for them. After all, CTE has never particularly been about over-the-top brutality. They’ve always been about energy and ambition, given the themes of The Fallout and Resistance. And it’s done no less well here, but in a different way.

Crown The Empire has earned every bit of their deserved success. They certainly didn’t phone in their performance on Retrograde – this is the album that will catapult them to stardom. At its core, it’s arena-sized rock music with grandiose ambitions. Don’t miss out.