Frontiers [Release date 22.08.25]
Wonderland is Crowne’s third album.
Here’s what we said about the band’s second album, Operation Phoenix (2023): “This is grab you by the lapels, get right in your face melodic rock. Macho, slick, streamlined.”
This one is too. Plus it’s catchy, immediate.
Crowne is as much of a European AOR supergroup as we’re likely to get. Such bands often fall short of our expectations. For the second time in a row, the band, made up of members of H.E.A.T., Art Nation, Europe, The Poodles and Dynazty (Jona Tee, Alexander Strandell, John Leven, Christial Lundqvist and Love Magnusson), lives up to its billing.
The galloping title track opens the album. Crazy as this sounds, it’s a bold, “derring-do” movie type song, with an us-against-them lyrical theme. It’s so smoothly produced and arranged. All the moving parts lock into place and Strandell emotes over the top. They’re clearly enjoying every moment.
‘Waiting For You’ emphasises the band’s streamlined melodic rock, up tempo, not a hair out of place. Strandell’s vocals leapfrog a few skyscrapers, and Tee’s keyboard frills and fills are the fulcrum, around which everybody else rotates. Everything meshes, the band are at one. The sum is greater etc.
This fast and furious high drama is unrelenting, so much emotion is poured into these songs.
And it gets heavier and harder, with Magnusson’s stirring riffs and razor sharp axe solos combining rock theatrics and an unshowy elegance on ‘Heaven Tonight’ and ‘Eye Of The Oracle’.
We have to wait until ‘Goodbye’, a tearstained ballad, arrives to give us some relief from the intensity (assuming that’s what we want). It has a cool tune, it’s well assembled, and everyone contributes a sensitive musical touch to the moment.
‘Warlords Of The North’ goes off tangentially, lyrically at least. It’s a deep dive into Sweden’s Viking warlord history, and the seafaring warriors who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe.
It’s a toughened up rock song done with pride, glamour, adventure and melody.
The ideas and the songs get a bit thinner toward the end of the album. ‘The Timing Is Right’ and ‘Love Thy Enemy’ and maybe ‘Hearts Collide’ too, have all the intensity, but perhaps just not enough of the spark that lit up the earlier tracks. ***1/2
Review by Brian McGowan
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