The Crownless King (feat. Chuck Billy)

This intense and ferocious track finds Jesse Leach attacking the American political system. The penitent pray for the downfall of your Of your reign The warrior soul shall break the hold of constraints In the end you will suffer The Killswitch singer explained the song's meaning to Kerrang: "I think the people, the masses, who are the backbone of a country are the warrior soul. We are the ones that have the power, even though the political system tries to control us. The few are ruling the many, but in reality, if we flip it on its head, the people are the ones who have the power and can make a difference. But we've all been so programmed to look up to these figureheads, so I'm just calling bulls--t on the whole thing."

"The Crownless King" is one of the thrashier songs that the band has come up with. When they were listening back to the track, guitarist Joel Stroetzel commented that the riffs reminded him of the thrash metal band Testament. He suggested asking their vocalist Chuck Billy to contribute a guest spot. Billy agreed, tracked his parts on his own, and sent them back to Killswitch.

This was the song on Atonement that took the longest to come together. The band's guitarist and producer Adam Dutkiewicz told HMV he felt Leach's initial lyric ideas weren't up to scratch, so he had him re-write the song several times. Eventually Dutkiewicz was satisfied, but he then had to wait for Chuck Billy to find time to track his parts.