The light breaks through the dense ancient forest canopy, its long journey settles upon a moss-covered headstone. Broken and smashed asunder its many parts lie amongst the decades of dead leaves and undergrowth that grow profligate about the forest floor.
Old School Death Metal such as Hellfrost And Fire conjures up such images in my mind when I spend time in their musical company. With its heavy helping of Celtic Frost influences this latest slab of darkening bliss is brought to us by legendary vocalist David Ingram (Benediction, Both Thrower). His depth of talent and his long industry experience shines on this album. It’s dripping with all that made early and in my mind pure death metal all that it is. Not here the guttural belching vocal destroying lyrical acrobatics. Nope, what you get here is closer to the depths that Lee Dorrian was plumbing in Cathedral. Underneath all the underlying anger and metaphysical nuances that proliferate this amazing vocal performance is a deeper soulful undercurrent. In the same way that Ozzy had the ability to underplay his soulful nature. Here two David underplays his.
The Music builds, swells, heaves then beats you down. Scott FairFax of Memoriam takes the reigns on the guitar and with a deft and very hard and heavy hand pulls and pushes the rhythms from one tragic atonal nightmare to another, It’s most defiantly THE death metal album of the year. If you are new to the genre and want a piece of something that is both modern in its recording and textures but harkens back to those halcyon days at the birth of true death metal then this is most certainly the one for you. I myself will be very keen to see these guys tour sometime in the future. It promises like this record to be most defiantly something to remember for years to come.
Hellfrost And Fire: Facebook
Release Year: 2022
Label: Transcending Obscurity Records
Category: Album
Country: UK
Reviewed by Tony Evans
