Label - Century Media Records
Release Date - 19th May 2023
Words- Tony Bliss
Imagine if (and I’m relying on you having some basic Game Of Thrones knowledge here) The Night King hadn’t been all that bothered about world domination, and was more concerned with gathering a few White Walkers around him and knocking out some Bolt Thrower-esque death metal. Congratulations, you have just imagined Frozen Soul. With their frosty aesthetic already fully formed, the band's debut Crypt Of Ice landed in 2021 like an ice-pick to the skull, their bullish stomp ‘n’ swing immediately and obviously superior to the countless other bands doing similar things, thanks not just to their strong arctic vision but also a cooler-box full of first-rate riffs. Glacial Domination unthaws a fresh batch of tunes that will undoubtedly make you pull death metal faces in the same way, but with a few welcome enhancements adding to the fearsome whole.
It hardly needs to be said that these eleven songs will freeze-blast and shatter anything in their path, and when the tempo really drops on the gloriously grotesque likes of ‘Morbid Effigy’ and ‘Abominable’, the band sound more destructive than ever before. Indeed, the Frozen Soul ethos largely remains the same, with these nails-hard, mid-paced gems barrelling along on a bedrock of brutal simplicity, the focus on hooks and atmosphere making for a deceptively catchy and gruesomely satisfying clutch of old-school arse-beaters that benefit from a very contemporary sonic power-punch.
As previously hinted at although, a handful of deft but exciting detours occasionally nod towards new strings to the Frozen Soul bow, not least the various horror-score synths which lend a schlocky, Blessed Are The Sick/Domination-era Morbid Angel vibe to mid-album interlude ‘Annihilation’ and the frankly brilliant ‘Frozen Soul’, which also ushers in a splurging dollop of melo-death guitars and a healthy dose of later day Carcass - a trick repeated throughout the record with numerous ripping lead breaks (‘Assimilator’) and plenty of riff-driven melodic flair. With that said, Glacial Domination’s core desire is always maximum brutality, and for the most part, represents a high-grade forty-minute pummeling from a band that are already starting to sound like future standard-bearers. Hats and scarves at the ready folks, this is a sub-zero plunge into one of the death metal events of 2023.
8.5/10
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