Pure as the Blood Covered Snow

Frost Like Ashes has been something of a curiosity in the realm of lesser known bands of the more extreme metal sub-genres. Essentially everything about them screams contradiction to all of the staunch adherents to the various styles they’ve been influenced by, though a more proper term for this would be individualistic. It all boils down to whether or not you want to erect walls of separation around the various metal species and simply state that no intermingling will be tolerated, be it ideological or stylistic. But even then, you’d be left assigning new genre labels to every band that ignored this dogmatic principle, and I think we can all agree that we have enough sub-genre labels to contend with as it is.

The most pervasive influences present on here are death and black metal, resulting in something that could perhaps be labeled as blackened death metal, though such a label could probably only apply to a small number of bands. The vocal style is a near even mishmash of high end shrieks similar to the sort Maniac is known for, though Azahel’s version of them aren’t quite as grating as what is heard on “Deathcrush”, as well as death metal barks and grunts that occasionally mimic David Vincent. There is no doubt that his credentials as the former vocalist of Possession, which was a lesser known Christian black sheep in the early 90s death metal explosion, has given further testimony of his ability to bring life to a relatively rough independent production such as this EP.

The songs themselves are pretty much all over the place stylistically, but work well together to present a varied approach to the darker side of metal. They all carry elements of the blackened death hybrid vocally, but musically they drift back and forth between thrash, traditional doom, and early 90s progressive death metal. The guitar playing is extremely competent, putting forth a varied repertoire of fast and mid-paced riffs laced with some well executed lead fills, not to mention some well executed solo breaks that dredge up memories of early Kreator and Exodus. Keyboards occasionally drift in and out of the mix, but play a very limited role in the overall atmosphere aside from either prefacing or concluding a song.

The band’s detractors/skeptics are onto something regarding the black metal label, because the style itself lends to a very limited scope of musical influences, and each song save the bonus track “Immortals” violate these rules over and over. Although the melodic tendencies of the chorus and the haunting keyboard drone in the background aren’t out of character for said genre, “Notions of Insanity” mostly features brutal low end death riffs. “A Cruel Verse” starts off with a sort of Darkthrone-like intro (which comes back during the chorus), but soon after resorts to a series of well realized mid-paced, low end death/thrash riffs, almost akin to a middle ground between Morbid Angel and late 80s Slayer. “Adorers of Blood” is loaded with traditional doom elements, particularly the down tempo, quasi-Southern metal/mid-70s Black Sabbath inspired intro riff that later morphs into a speed tremolo theme married to this band’s brand of blackened death, after throwing in one or two slower thrash parts here and there of course.

The absolute highlight of this EP and in itself a reason to seek it out is the cover of “After Forever”. Forget all of your lousy grindcore and half assed crossover nonsense of the last 10 years and just get a load of this insane semi-punk, extreme speed/thrash variation on the old and highly controversial Black Sabbath classic. Picture Morbid Saint on steroids with the production and instrumental attitude of Cro Mags and you’ll get the idea. Sure, most fans of black and thrash metal might have a hard time coping with the message of this song, but considering how utterly unintelligible the lyrics are when Azahel puts them in that high, half-Maniac, half-Dani Filth wail it’s hardly an issue, unless you feel a desperate need to page through a lyric sheet while listening, which is not provided on this EP by the way.

Naturally the scarcity of this release currently might make acquiring it a challenge, so you’ll probably end up having to seek it out for download on the band’s page or somewhere else. Of all of these, only “A Cruel Verse” made it onto the full length album “Tophet”, which showcases the band in a much more consistent ‘Black’/Death hybrid. I’m not normally a huge fan of independent/self produced releases because they tend to be poorly produced, but of the ones I’ve managed to track down, this is definitely in my top 5, any noticeable flaws in the mixing of the four primary songs and the obviously rough demo song non-withstanding.

These guys are suffering from a serious identity crisis. Their music is essentially death metal with quite melodic riffs, and some pretty good keyboard parts now and then. Listen to the intro to the opening track for example. That 'triggered' sound. You know what I mean? Listen to the opening of the third track, that groove-based, bluesy, almost southern-sounding riff. Listen to the fast, almost thrashy death metal take on Black Sabbath's After Forever. No way in hell is this black metal. Yet the band won't stop referring to their own music as black metal, wearing corpse paint (which looks horrible on the picture in the case of the album by the way, looks like one guy has sunglasses painted onto his face!) and using weak black metal shrieks along with their (better and more suitable) death metal growls in their music. This band don't seem to have a clue what black metal is, oustide of the 'facepaint and screaming' stereotype. This is certainly not a black metal recording.

Now that I have that out of the way, I can safely say it's not a bad release either. The riffs are catchy and memorable...Notions of Insanity has some really cool riffage, especially towards the end, with some pretty good keys too. Adorers of Blood rides a nice groove the whole way, which comes back after the intro in more tremelo fashion. And call me crazy, but I kinda like the After Forever cover - it's kinda goofy, but it's fun. Who's complaining? The last track, Immortals, is the closest thing on here sounding like black metal - but it's still a far cry. I'm not an expert on blackened death metal, but as far as I can tell it sounds a little Behemothish.

A band capable of writing good riffs that need to drop the black metal illusion they're hiding behind.