Frozen - In Time
Self-released
Melodic Black / Death Metal
8 songs (55:31)
Release year: 2007
Frozen
Reviewed by Dylan
If you couldn’t tell by their name, Frozen is a band that was formed above the 50th parallel. These Canadians like their subatomic particles moving at a relatively slow speed, and their songs to outlive their shelf life.In Time is the band’s first offering unto the frigid arms of metalheads with an internet connection worldwide. I’ve been giving it a good listen for the past few weeks, and was only reminded of something I already knew: Scandinavia isn’t the only place that gets cold enough to inspire a small percentage of male citizens to don corpse paint and push the angry Maiden riff as far as it can go.

Listening to this frigid quintet gives me an idea of what the French Destinity probably sounded like when they started out. Anyone who has heard that band, Old Man’s Child, or Naglfar already knows what this band is trying to sound like. Slightly blackened death metal is the order of the day, and it’s pretty cheap. The band promotes itself as "extreme progressive" metal, which basically translates into writing songs that outstay their welcome. The riffs are firmly planted in Scandinavian soil and are backed up by a clear, but halfway boring rhythm section. I say halfway due to bassist Gorf's tendancy to throw in a few surprise licks and runs that keep things mildly intriguing. Drummer Zasta’s skin beating seemingly got the best mix of all the instruments present on the album, but his work is nothing more than competent. A few blastbeats, LOTS of rolling double bass, and forgettable fills make the rhythm section rather stagnant.

However, they're not quite as stagnant as the riffs of Marek Chagnon and “Scymon”. None of their riffs stood out, but they all sounded like they were trying to. Tracks like Nagash Hellscream and Entities of Doom have good beginnings, filled with triplets and tremolo picking, but are ultimately ruined by sections that lead nowhere and burdened by an overdose of repetition. In fact, opener Decaying Soul is the only track that I could deem worthwhile, but even then you will be less than floored. The vocals of Mott follow the Black Dahlia Murder pattern of altering between blackened screeches and deep growls, but like the drums and the guitars, its nothing special.

If you’ve managed to stick around long enough to hear Frozen Inhale your attention will surely begin to wander. Every song sounds like it is in the same key, and follows the same melodic progression time and again. Granted, there are moments in The Dreams in the Witch House and Quest for the Bloodscourge where a clean guitar interlude rears its pretentious head, but it just makes the tracks seem even longer, which is an ongoing problem In Time suffers from. Speaking of pretentiousness, the first minute of Unborn serves as a textbook example. Spoken word intros are always flirting on the borderline of cheese, but the line is severely crossed at this point in the album.

In the musical world Frozen and other bands shiver in today, you simply need to produce something better than this if you don’t want a reviewer to come off sounding like a crass bastard. In Time brings nothing new to the table, nor does it make you want to go back and revisit the old days. It makes you wonder why there are still bands trying to produce diet black metal with little to no passion.
Killing Songs :
Dylan quoted 49 / 100
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