Call of the North

This is what happens when modern bands actually remember what power metal is! Frozen Crown's latest release is big, bombastic and balls-to-the-walls power metal with an utterly refreshing pinch of speed/thrash influence that makes it sound so much less generic than the average release nowadays.

Though it's obvious at first glance that the record is a very modern, melodic metal record it offers enough surprises in form of truly memorable and headbangable riffs, interesting melodies and choirs hearkening back to the glory days of the genre.

The album relies mainly on mid to fast tempos and to-the-point drum patterns with relatively little time-wasting and a tasteful amount of fills and blistering sections intermingled within. The focus on faster tempos is a great part of the album that makes it much more firmly grounded in what I and a bunch of boomers would call "real power metal" as opposed to the slow-to-mid-tempo-Edguy-ripoff variant of power metal that's very common in the current scene.

The influences of the '80s through '00s are also very clear on the record with many fantastic riffs that steer your thoughts in the direction of bands like Helloween, Blind Guardian, Statovarius and Falconer. The same is true for the absolutely delightful melodies that balance catchiness and substance to a degree seldom seen by many modern bands.

Call of the North is not only a nostalgia trip however and surely has enough uniqueness and identity to make it stand out, from the heavier riffs and vocals that are sprinkled throughout the album to the clear and modern production this record certainly stands on its own!

The vocals on the record are also great, the harmonies and melodies are well-written and arranged and particularly the female leads hit like a ton of bricks with their focus on mid-range pounding rather than delicate highs. It ought also be noted that the guitar performance on the record is a definitive highlight, from blistering, thrashy riffs to uncannily precise chugging and incredibly impressive though still catchy shredwork adorn the album throughout and at times the guitars turn a relatively generic sections into something truly special.

Of course the album stumbles on a few points, the drums in particular sound a little bit plastic at times which is commonplace among newer releases though the production is overall pretty great. Frozen Crown also simply shines much more during the heavy, riffy, all-out sections than they do during their more ballad-esque- or orchestra-focused sections which in my opinion certainly aren't highlights on the record.

A few of the vocal melodies are also (though very good) not quite as memorable or as impactful as I'd perhaps wish them to be but honestly I'd rather have some mediocre lines than the album being filled to the brim with ear-wormy pop choruses that can give you musical diabetes from their sweetness.

All in all though not revolutionary or mindblowing by any stretch of the imagination this is a great release which is made all the more unique by the faster tempos, thrashier riffs and lower-than-average, attitude-filled vocals.

If you're totally out-of-touch and think that good old riff-based power metal is dead and bands like Sacred Outcry, Smoulder, Visigoth, Owlbear and Gatekeeper haven't convinced you yet, give this album a shot! I for one enjoyed it quite a lot.

Rating: Great, nostalgic and relatively unique!

Well, I have to admit that I'm from Italy, I love power metal as much as I'm deeply into extreme metal like death or black metal. It may sound strange, and surely it was back in the '90s, but by now, I mean, it's socially accepted, or better, it's acceptable by the metal community! Since my kind of hybrid devotion to these two, apparently distant words, was made less bizarre by the Italian (what a coincidence, right?) band Stormlord in the late '90s, and then the cross-over temptation seduced a lot of bands almost everywhere, for my great joy and satisfaction! So, as you can guess, it's not really an issue from me listening to Enthroned or Cirith Gorgor along with Rhapsody (Of Fire) or Frozen Crown, one of the latest more successful power metal band in the scene.

I know what you are all thinking about: this band has a lot of appeal to the audience, not only for their musicianship or songwriting! Maybe this kind of female fronted formula is just a little bit over-exploited by metal music labels nowadays, and I think it's not a mystery why it's a so popular line-up configuration, but we are here to review the quality of the album, the songs and the riffs, and there's no place at the moment to make a debate about marketing strategies applied not on pop music, but on heavy metal, or what is sold under that label! Frozen Crown is leaden, quite in its entirety, by guitarist, composer, singer and growler Federico Mondelli, a talented guy with a very peculiar ability: he's not only a precise, refined master with his 6 strings gear, he's also capable of writing very good, memorable melodies, being lead phrasings, verses, choruses, interludes and solos. A lot of his songs present a standard structure, or a work-around about a very popular styled song structure: there's no flaw in doing that, in the writing process, but you surely have the task to display strong and memorable melodic lines, instrumental or vocal wise.

Federico is very skilled in doing that: if I remember correctly, I stated in an interview that he takes inspiration not only from metal, both classic or extreme, but also from '80s pop music, even from euro dance radio-hits! And, when you hear one of his many song-structured, listener-friendly tracks, you can clearly spot the radiophonic potential of his melodies. This is not a simple goal to achieve! In every single album of Frozen Crown's discography, there are always a couple of tracks not really devoted to this standard format, because Federico really wants to show you that he's also able to write and perform prog-like complex structures, extended in timing and with riffs organized in a more free, narrative, challenging sequences. The first Frozen Crown effort what a huge success, quite immediately, and it was, in fact, filled with memorable songs, with only a few fillers here and there. Almost the same could be said about the second release, while, starting from the third instalment, with a renewed line-up, fillers or weak songs are disappeared, leaving on the table only a solid, way more classic heavy metal oriented power metal.

If the catchiest songs could always be seen as power pop structures, nonetheless they are enjoyable and written even better than before! But the best effort was yet to come: this fourth, new record, is wider in scope, more epic and folk infused than everything else in the past, and the more complex structured songs are way better integrated in the economy of the whole album, with a more balanced relationship between fast, power metal sing-along hits and more elaborated and layered tracks. Growling vocals by Federico himself are disappeared, but it is not a huge loss: it's true that the melodic death metal spice is no more present, but the epicness and greatness of the entire release overshadow the lack of this element. Frozen Crown are probably not the new Rhapsody (Of Fire), but they're growing in exposure, in strength and skills. It's a female-fronted band, there's also a young girl on lead guitar and by now another young lady is added as a third guitarist. It's easy to doubt some sort of marketing strategy, but at the end, who cares, if the songs are good, memorable and catchy! When you have zero talent in songwriting, your melodies are cheap and instantly forgettable, it doesn't matter how good-looking you are; in this case, the same sentence, but in a reversed meaning: if the songs are great, your good look appearance is not relevant!