CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?
Crippled Black Phoenix are no strangers to reinvention so when vocalist Daniel Änghede left the band shortly before their most recent recording session, they didn’t let it get in the way of making Ellengæst. Multi-instrumentalist founder Justin Greaves tells Prog about getting creative with old friends and how Beowulf turned out to be a major source of inspiration.
Words: Dom Lawson
Strong spirits: Justin Greaves and his feline companion, Fangs.
“This album is definitely outward looking and full of despair. The next one is going to be cheerful, I promise!”
T he last time Prog spoke with Crippled Black Phoenix founder Justin Greaves, everything seemed to be going extremely well. It was the summer of 2018 and his band were poised to release their seventh full-length recording, Great Escape. The album was widely hailed as containing some of their best work; a development Greaves attributed to having “the right people playing the music” after years of turmoil and unsettled line-ups.
Two years on, Crippled Black Phoenix are about to release a new studio record, but with yet another line-up. Seemingly out of nowhere, vocalist Daniel Änghede and synth player Mark Furnevall decided to leave the group late in 2019, just as Greaves was preparing to hit the studio. A lesser band might have crumbled amid such unexpected upheaval, but the (perhaps surprising) end result of the situation is an album that many are hailing as the finest thing to bear the CBP name yet. With a weary chuckle, Greaves explains how he has yet again wrenched victory from the jaws of defeat.