KEVIN WHITAKER – CROWN

Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio, we’ve been listening to the latest from Pennsylvania’s Kevin Whitaker. The single, Crown, is released today and for fans of industrial rock, this track is an absolute must.

In Kevin’s words, “Crown Is about Fighting!!!! Fighting to keep going, let’s face it we are all tired and done with this world we are living in. It really sucks being in this hell hole. We need to put our crown back on and fight!! And take back our lives and live to the fullest.”

Crown starts with some powerful industrial rock and slightly electronic-sounding stabs. Imagine if Pantera or Metallica had decided to create an electronic-infused track.

Kevin’s vocals are growly, passionate, strong and aggressive. In places they are layered and we loved the anthemic-style crowd shouted choruses. They feel like Kevin is encouraging everyone to join in and this feels like a really positive call-to-action song.

“put your crown back on and fight, this is how we kill the pain”

There are sections within the vocals where the voice is filtered, a telephone filter, which makes them even more forceful and dynamic when the full sound returns.

We loved the electric synth-like fuzz bass that really helped create a genre-crossing feel to the track and as we listened through the track several times, we tried to imagine various unexpected combinations of bands that this song sounds like. Imagine if Muse had teamed up with the Beastie Boys on a “Fight For Your Right To Party” song!!

Ideas from our ears

The production on this track is huge! To our ears, a little more sonic space could be achieved with a hi-pass filter at 40Hz to remove some unnecessary low-end rumble and a small low shelf cut around 90Hz to lower some slightly ‘boomy’ tones in places. As always these are just some ideas from our ears.

Crown feels like a song that would be an incredible workout track. Also, we feel it very much leans towards being a perfect track for sync in a TV show or movie. We were picturing a fight scene in an abandoned warehouse – Perhaps Cobra Kai or similar. The stinger ending of the track helps this be a perfect sync track, and the shortness (under 3 minutes) is a music supervisor’s dream.

Final thoughts

Crown is an exhilarating and aggressive ride. There’s nothing we didn’t love about this powerful track from this burgeoning rock artist. We’re looking forward to hearing much more!