Black Crown Initiate deliver an ethereally brutal playthrough of Death Comes in Reverse

Prog-keen death-metallers Black Crown Initiate have been assaulting speakers since 2012, releasing three full-length albums along the way: The Wreckage of Stars, Selves We Cannot Forgive and this year's Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape - which blends melody with brutality throughout its nine ambitious tracks.

Death Comes in Reverse features some of the most diverse songwriting to come out of the genre in recent memory, navigating slower, stripped-back sections and fuller arrangements.

Guitarists Ethan McKenna and Andy Thomas join Guitar World today to play through the track in full, and do so wielding mighty 8-string electric guitars: a Kiesel DC800 and an ESP E2 HRF NT-8 Baritone, respectively. Both guitars are running through EVH 5150 III 50W amps.

"Death Comes In Reverse is definitely a strange arrangement for us," Thomas says. "It has a lot of sparse, textural parts, and is really built off of one idea."