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Blind Faith Loyalty

by Crown the Lost

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Symbiotic 07:09
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Finality 05:18
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Privation 05:10
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about

Blind Faith Loyalty (2007 – 2009)
Songwriting for Blind Faith Loyalty had already begun barely a month after the release of Reverence. I remember the first actual sessions planned for Labor Day weekend of 2006, but Joe promptly cancelled, for coincidentally, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had his appendix removed and was slated to miss the first few games of the upcoming season. Such priorities, Bonaddio.

Jon was around for the first few months of planning for Blind Faith Loyalty, but once he left, we acquired the services of Jordan Villella, now ex-drummer of fellow Pittsburgh metallers The Zimmerman Note, who achieved some modicum of success with their New Deception six-song MCD. Jordan was polite and enthusiastic; most of us were rude and cynical. Jordan was left-handed and played a little loose for some people’s liking; most in the band were so utterly concerned with being tight and technical that it overrode everything else. So essentially, we weren’t a good fit, but Jordan hung around well into 2007, which is when coincidentally, we enjoyed our busiest (and most productive) period on the live front.

It is also during this period that alcohol and other misadventures became commonplace within the band. And as drinking became more frequent, so did some rather regrettable moments, including the shattering of a cell phone on Renaldi’s temple (by me), the gradual destruction of our van (see: window punched out, side completely damaged from kicking, etc.), and damage to property that did not belong to us, such as windshields, side-mirrors, bathroom stalls, and quite a few things I am probably unaware of. These events were not only counterproductive, but detrimental to the long-term viability of the band. People around Pittsburgh started to formulate opinions on Crown the Lost that we were drunk, rude idiots…totally not unfounded, but entirely too disappointing to someone like I who had hoped to parlay the band into something of greater significance. These regular happenings led to a constant strain that wouldn’t cease until the band folded four years later…

Jordan eventually gave way to Nick Bentzel, a drummer of supreme technical ability who Joe and I had played with in CTL precursor, Sinning is our Savior. We were stunned to secure Nick’s services; he was a total technical death metal fiend and we were sure he would want nothing to do with clean vocals and melodies. Alas, Nick found the pairing to be opportunistic; he would hold fort with extreme drumming, while we would find a way to blend melodic riffs and clean, sometimes operatic singing. For a short while, it seemed like it would work a like a charm.

While the songs on Blind Faith Loyalty are more technical and elaborate than the ones found on Reverence, they are certainly not better. Because of the regular in-fighting and all around “bad vibes” (no other way to put it), the songs suffered, and we ended up overextending our reach with a few cuts, of which I will not name. For some reason, we thought we could make the most extreme album with clean singing, a noble pursuit, but one that the likes of Into Eternity and Between the Buried and Me could do infinity better. You can’t fault us for such an approach – every band wants to topple their previous album.

After months of pre-production and sending out various feelers to labels (all of the “big” ones had expressed at least some interest, granted nothing of the sort like “We’re ready to work with you.”), we commenced recording of Blind Faith Loyalty in January of 2008 at Soundscape Studios with producer/engineer Dave Watson.

We were already comfortable with Watson, for in the summer of 2007, we recorded the one-off version of “Bound to Wrath,” which helped further whatever profile we had at the time. (I distinctly remember Blind Guardian/Helloween producer Charlie Bauerfeind sending the band a message through MySpace saying he’d be willing to help. Whatever that meant.) Oddly, the 2007 version of “Bound to Wrath” became preferred to final album cut, primarily because Jordan played drums on the demo, a few months before his departure…

Outside of the recording of the drums, the sessions were filled with stress. Joe and I weren’t getting along, and would often find ourselves badgering each other as we recorded our own parts. Shuffle in some girlfriends, booze, and pressure, and the guitar sessions were not enjoyable, to say the least. It got so hairy at one juncture that I considered dissolving the band altogether, having phoned Watson prior to a session stating my case. I was eventually talked off the proverbial cliff, but the fact remained: The main constituents in CTL didn’t like each other.

It’s your run-of-the-mill power struggle: Joe had infinitely more musical ability than I, and was often our musical force, but lacked the sort of social and people skills to constitute being a band “leader.” (Oddly enough, he currently holds that position in his excellent new band, No Reason to Live.) I had some level of playing ability, but nowhere near the level of Joe’s. However, I was the band’s de-facto leader because I started it, and was willing to deal with the minutia of running a band, thins like booking shows, taking care of merch, and making plans. These things I was somewhat adept at, and I didn’t mind ceding control on the musical front as long as it benefitted the band. Joe didn’t see it that way, sometimes claiming everyone in the band were my “puppets,” something I felt couldn’t be further from the truth.

Guitars and bass were eventually wrapped (Joe performed all bass parts on BFL), leading us to vocals. We made the grave mistake of not practicing during the tracking of the album, leaving Renaldi to his own devices. And since we weren’t practicing, neither was he, and he came into the vocal sessions competent in completing his parts, but his voice wasn’t ready. The initial vocal sessions were an abject disaster, with nothing making it to tape. One could feel instantly sorry for Renaldi: He was only 20, and was often told what to do in the band, and if we didn’t set up practice, his voice basically sat idle. In retrospect, we handled him the wrong way; he has a fantastic natural voice, rich in tenor, able to hit highs without a problem, along with a strong, impactful delivery that didn’t need much refinement. Throw in the expectations for the album, drinking, our general idiocy, etc. he had a mighty struggle those first few weeks.

Eventually, Joe and I stopped showing up to vocal sessions. It was just Renaldi and Watson, who had an infinite amount of patience with our singer, even putting his foot down on the consumption of alcohol during tracking. It took a total of four months to wrap tracking of vocals on BFL, but Renaldi’s growth from Reverence was obvious: He had come into his own as a singer, filling songs like “Drawing the Parallel,” “Symbiotic” and “Hollow Refuge” with harmonies and some (unexpected) vocal twists. It might have been a total struggle on all fronts, but one can’t argue that in two year’s time, Renaldi’s progress as a singer was marked, and quite evident.

This incarnation of Crown the Lost fell apart month’s after the completion of Blind Faith Loyalty. Our long-time bass player Ryan Eicheldinger stopped showing for practice, so he was asked to leave; Bentzel quit after a rather contentious show in the summer of 2008, threatening to have his drums removed from the album, but quickly relented. Shows were cancelled, with only a few saved thanks to Jon coming back to play. The band went from the highest expectations earlier in the year, to being partially inactive. A great way to promote a new album, eh?

We eventually agreed to a one-album deal with Italy’s Cruz del Sur Music for the release of Blind Faith Loyalty in March of 2009. The album did well critically, but as I was told by the powers that be, didn’t sell as well as expected. The real reason was because we felt between the margins of power and thrash. We weren’t neither; we were a literal combination of the two, and it failed to land when the power metal denizens, as well as the retro thrash brood, who probably found us too polished for their liking.

The whole Blind Faith Loyalty era of the band for me, was marked by expectations unfulfilled. Not to say we were in a position to become a regular touring act, but the opportunity was attainable. Simply put, we didn’t deliver the way we should have on Blind Faith Loyalty. Listening to the album now, it has its merit and has aged better than I thought, but one can’t help but think what we’d able to achieve with a better atmosphere in the band…

-David E. Gehlke, January 2014

credits

released March 11, 2009

Chris Renaldi - Vocals
Joe Bonaddio - Lead Guitars/Vocals
David E. Gehlke - Rhythm Guitars
Shaun Gunter - Bass
Kevin Antonacci - Drums

Note: Drums on this album were performed by Nick Bentzel

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Crown the Lost Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

This is the official Bandcamp page for defunct Pittsburgh melodic thrash metallers Crown the Lost.

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