The Los Angeles-based industrial metal act Suicide Queen has announced the release of their second full-length album, ‘Crowned In Blood.’ The album, which arrived November 14, 2025, via the independent label COP International, is not a celebration in the traditional sense. It is a confrontation, a meticulously crafted ordeal intended to serve a specific, almost ceremonial, function.

The band’s creative engine, vocalist and main songwriter Kay Dolores, confirmed this intent with a stark admission. “We wanted this record to hurt. And it does,” Dolores stated in a release accompanying the announcement. “Maybe more so to record it than to listen to it, but you will decide for yourself.”

This pursuit of “hurt” is the central thematic anchor for the entire project. It is a direct reflection of the band’s own stated philosophy, a practice described as “the ritual of turning pain into power.” For Suicide Queen, this is not mere gothic affectation. The album’s title reframes suffering as sovereignty. The pain is not an obstacle to the crown; the blood is the coronation.

In a cultural moment defined by algorithmic pleasantness and the demand for passive, comforting media, Suicide Queen has drawn a line. Their work, as their label describes it, is “loud, it is wicked, and it is not kind.” It is a “horrid shriek” and “deafening noise” that demands active engagement, forcing the listener to participate in the ritual.

An Inheritance of Noise

Suicide Queen’s purpose is clarified by examining their artistic origins. The band’s sound, described as “industrial blackened metal,” is a potent and specific cocktail of dark musical traditions. This is not the accessible, stadium-goth of their peers, but a return to the foundational, abrasive roots of the genre.

This history begins in the post-punk schism of the late 1970s, which fractured rock into myriad subcultures. One of these, gothic rock, was defined by its “dark, romantic and bleak” atmosphere, drawing on scything guitar patterns and deep, droning vocals to explore “morbidity, existentialism, religious symbolism, or supernatural mysticism.” This, in turn, fueled the rise of darkwave, a broader gloomy and melancholy variant of new wave that embraced the cold textures of synthesizers and drum machines.

Suicide Queen’s sound exists at the violent crossroads where these traditions collide with heavier, more aggressive forms. They are frequently and accurately compared to industrial progenitors Ministry and Skinny Puppy. This is the “industrial” part of their moniker: the cold, mechanical, and relentless percussion that evokes systemic decay. The metal provides the visceral, guitar-driven raw energy.

But the most telling component is “blackened.” This addition aligns the band not just with personal turmoil, but with the profound philosophical misanthropy and anti-religious fervor of black metal. When Suicide Queen blends these elements, they are making a conscious choice. They are asserting that the deafening noise of early industrial and the bleak fury of black metal are still the most honest artistic responses to contemporary existence.

The Chronicle of a Queen

This definitive sound was not an accident; it was a destination. Kay Dolores founded Suicide Queen in Oakland, California, in 2014, later relocating the project to Los Angeles. While the band’s history includes a “thousand changes… in personnel,” this instability only served to reinforce Dolores’s role as the singular “mastermind” and “main songwriter”—the constant presence officiating the “ritual.”

The band’s discography traces a clear evolutionary path toward this new album. The 2017 ‘Desiccation’ EP was a raw, promising statement. It was their 2022 full-length debut, ‘Nymphomaniac,’ however, that codified their identity. Described by critics as both a “poisoned dagger” and a “crazy ride” that moves between “pure evil and sweet mayhem,” the album established the band’s core thesis of violence and sexuality.

This was followed by the 2023 EP, ‘The Heart’s Conceit.’ Crucially, the tracks from that release were framed as the beginning of a “new era” for the band. This was not a standalone record; it was a deliberate prologue. It framed ‘Crowned In Blood’ as the known culmination of a multi-year creative arc, a promise of the “hurt” that was to come.

‘Crowned In Blood’: Rewriting the Scars

The eleven tracks of ‘Crowned In Blood’ must be read as a work of conscious self-synthesis. The album begins with the percussive violence of ‘The Butcher,’ followed by ‘Rattlesnake,’ ‘The Incinerator,’ ‘Your Grief Has Taken Many Forms,’ ‘Switchblade Mouth,’ ‘Dust,’ ‘The Heart’s Conceit,’ ‘May Christ Be Your Poison,’ ‘This is How the Bleeding Starts,’ ‘Pale Horse,’ and concludes with the ‘Switchblade Mouth (Dolore Mix).’

This structure is a deliberate act of canonization. The band is not just presenting new material; they are curating their entire career. ‘Switchblade Mouth’ first appeared eight years prior, on the 2017 ‘Desiccation’ EP. Furthermore, two of the album’s emotional centerpieces, ‘Your Grief Has Taken Many Forms’ and ‘The Heart’s Conceit,’ are pulled directly from the 2023 EP that signaled this “new era.”

This is not filler; it is, in effect, a director’s cut. By revisiting these older songs, Suicide Queen is retroactively drawing a line, consolidating their history into a single, definitive statement. They are declaring that the “scars” of their earliest work and the “grief” of their recent past are all part of the same story.

The tracklist itself maps this journey: from the active, external violence of the opening songs (‘The Butcher,’ ‘The Incinerator’) to the internal consequence and sorrow of its mid-section (‘Your Grief Has Taken Many Forms’) and finally, to the bleak philosophical transcendence of its conclusion (‘May Christ Be Your Poison’, ‘Pale Horse’).

The Butcher and The Poison

The album’s individual tracks serve as stations in this ritual. The opener, ‘The Butcher,’ is the slaughterhouse introduction. Its atmosphere is not one of chaotic frenzy but of methodical, industrial weight—the slamming drum and pounding note of a cleaver striking a block. It is the sound of an act that is “wicked, and… not kind.”

This is followed by the coiled threat of ‘Rattlesnake,’ a track that shifts from percussive impact to tense, gritty menace, promising a venomous strike.

The album’s philosophical core, however, is ‘May Christ Be Your Poison.’ The title is the band’s “blackened” thesis made explicit, a blasphemous inversion of Western salvation. The song itself is the sound of this despair, a moment where the very concept of a savior is reframed as the ultimate toxin.

The music video for the track functions as a visual manifestation of this theme. Its intent aligns with the tradition of endurance and body art. Artists like Marina Abramović have long used their work to explore “confronting pain, blood, and physical limits of the body.”

The video for ‘May Christ Be Your Poison’ is not a simple narrative film; it is a visual component of the “ritual,” a depiction of the physical and psychological “hurt” required for this coronation.

The Coronation Rite

This ritual was not confined to the studio. On November 15, 2025, the night after the album’s release, Suicide Queen held a “coronation rite” in the form of a live album release show at San Francisco’s DNA Lounge. This was not a simple concert; it was a deeply significant, curated cultural event.

The lineup for the evening was a perfect triangulation of the album’s sound. Suicide Queen was supported by The Vile Augury and Our Graves. These acts were chosen for their sonic and personal compatibility. The Vile Augury, a San Francisco-based dark-electro duo, builds its threatening, hypnotic sound from a fusion of early industrial, thrash and black metal. Our Graves, an Oakland-based project, operates in the electro-industrial and aggrotech space.

The connection is more than just stylistic. Our Graves is the solo project of Ron Graves, a member of Suicide Queen. This transforms the event from a gig into a “family affair,” a showcase of a cohesive and insular artistic ecosystem. The audience at the DNA Lounge was not merely seeing three bands; they were witnessing a total immersion, a night dedicated to the specific, dark, and potent hybrid of sound that ‘Crowned In Blood’ defines.

A Necessary Hurt

In the end, all threads lead back to the “hurt.” Suicide Queen’s mission of “turning pain into power” serves a vital, almost therapeutic function. In a culture that increasingly demands superficial positivity, their “wicked, and… not kind” art provides a necessary and cathartic release. It is a space where the darker sides of existence and personal problems are not flaws to be corrected, but truths to be confronted.

The album’s deafening noise is a validation of that darkness. The coronation, ultimately, is not just for the band. It is an offering to any listener willing to endure the ceremony and, in doing so, find their own power in the pain.

The band’s stated intention was to create a record that would inflict emotional damage. In a time of curated digital pleasantness, what role does “difficult” or “hurtful” music play in your own life? Where do you draw the line between a cathartic confrontation and a simple endurance test?