Frozen Soul: "Glacial Domination"

This Texas band pulls from classic death metal without worshipping any band too religiously. Their strength is taking a riff and groove it without compromising the heaviness, In this way there is a bit of Bolt Thrower in their DNA, but not enough to lump them in with bands who are clearly trying to re-live that band's glory days. Lyrically things are grim and gory with only marginal amounts of the Dungeons and Dragons escapism, despite throwing in the sound of sword fighting before "Arsenal of War" . Vocalist Chad Green is articulate in his growls and gets the lyrics across with the grace of Carcass or Obituary. They use a great deal of self-control to allow the riffs to grind into your ears at maximum capacity without feeling compelled to pour on the speed. 

The first song where things started to take on a uniform crunch and I had to go back and give the song a second listen was "Morbid Effigy" which is weird because there is a creepy intro that helps separate it from the previous songs. The drummer's sense for when to use double bass stands out on this song. He also drops his growl into an even lower gurgle which I like. The title track is extra crunchy, but still pretty hooky and melodic. It's this balance that not only keeps the album listenable but make it fun, rather than just being extreme ear torture. Not sure what feeling his hate has to do with glaciers. The song "Frozen Soul" is aggressive as hell but flows melodically. 

The more hammering chug of "Assimilator " is an ode to John Carpenter's "the Thing". Much like that remake, this band, takes the heart of classic death metal and gives it a fresh coat of effects, and denser production for one of the best guitar tones I have heard committed to album in some time. The last three songs are invested in their fetish for all things cold. "Best Served Cold" finds the band digging into even thicker grooves. The vocals are a very essential part of the song rather than just being the obligatory human element. I can assume "Abominable." is about the Abominable Snowman, but from the lyrics it must be a very powered version of it to bring about the apocalypse. As I am not sure the Abominable Snowman is indestructible. They are huge fans of huge monsters as the last song is about Godzilla. It crunches across a similar cold sonic landscape as the other songs. I went into this not knowing anything about this band aside from seeing their name around and I am walking away a fan which speaks to how well this band does what they do as there is a constant flow of death metal bands in my in-box so for these guys to stand out it speaks volumes to their talents. If you like death metal this album is a must. I will give it a 10. The bar has been set for the death metal album to beat this year.  Released May 9th on Century Media.